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The Death of the Grizzly.

(From the Drawing by A. B. Frost.)

NEW LIBRARY EDITION

THE

iX

WILDERNESS HUNTER

Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle Plains

BY

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE
PART I

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Jlbc fcnicfterbocl^er pcese

•7f75~

Copyright, 1893

by

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

3 «:r ^ '\ "t H

TO

E- K R.

"They saw the silences
Move by and beckon; saw the forms,
The very beards, of burly storms,
And heard them talk like sounding seas . .
They saw the snowy mountains rolled
And heaved along the nameless lands
Like mighty billows; saw the gold
Of awful sunsets ; saw the blush
Of sudden dawn, and felt the hush
Of heaven when the day sat down
And hid his face in dusky hands."

Joaquin Miller.

"In vain the speeding or shyness;
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods . . .

. where geese nip their food with short jerks,
Where sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless prairie,
Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square

miles, far and near.
Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and ice-clad

trees . . .
The moose, large as an ox, cornered by himters, plunging

with his forefeet, the hoofs as sharp as knives . .
The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk,
the bed of hemlock boughs, and the bear-skin."

Walt Whitman.

PREFACE

FOR a number of years much of my life was
spent either in the wilderness or on the
borders of the settled country — if, indeed,
*' settled" is a term that can rightly be applied to
the vast, scantily peopled regions where cattle-
ranching is the only regular industry. During
this time I hunted much, among the mountains
and on the plains, both as a pastime and to pro-
cure hides, meat, and robes for use on the ranch ;
and it was my good luck to kill all the various
kinds of large game that can properly be consid-
ered to belong to temperate North America.

In hunting, the finding and killing of the game
is after all but a part of the whole. The free, self-
reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stal-
wart democracy ; the wild surroundings, the grand
beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the
ways and habits of the woodland creatures — all
these unite to give to the career of the wilderness
hunter its peculiar charm. The chase is among
the best of all national pastimes ; it cultivates that
vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a na-
tion, as in an individual, the possession of no other
qualities can possibly atone.

VOL. I . vii

viii Preface

No one but he who has partaken thereof can
understand the keen deHght of hunting in lonely
lands. For him is the joy of the horse well ridden
and the rifle well held; for him the long days of
toil and hardship, resolutely endured, and crowned
at the end with triumph. In after years there
shall come forever to his mind the memory of end-
less prairies shimmering in the bright sun ; of vast
snow-clad wastes lying desolate under gray skies ;
of the melancholy marshes ; of the rush of mighty
rivers; of the breath of the evergreen forest in
summer ; of the crooning of ice-armored pines at
the touch of the winds of winter ; of cataracts roar-
ing between hoary mountain masses; of all the
innumerable sights and sounds of the wilderness ;
of its immensity and mystery ; and of the silences
that brood in its still depths.

Sagamore Hill,

June, 1893.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS; WILDERNESS HUNTERS AND
WILDERNESS GAME

The American wilderness — Forests, plains, mountains —
Likeness and unlikeness to the Old- World wilderness — Wil-
derness hunters — Boone, Crockett, Houston, Carson — The
trappers — The buffalo hunters — The stockmen — The regular
army — Wilderness game — Bison, moose, elk, caribou, deer,
antelope — Other game — Hunting in the wilderness. . . . 1-23

CHAPTER II

HUNTING FROM THE RANCH) THE BLACKTAIL DEER

In the cattle country — Life on a ranch — A round-up —
Branding a maverick — The Bad Lands — ^A shot at a blacktail
— Still-hunting the blacktail — Its habits — Killing a buck in
August — A shot at close range — Occasional unwariness of
blacktail 24-43

CHAPTER III

THE WHITETAIL DEER; AND THE BLACKTAIL OF THE COLUMBIA

The whitetail — Yields poor sport — Fire hunting — Hunting
with hounds — Shooting at running game — Queer adventure —
Anecdotes of plainsmen — Good and bad shots — A wagon-trip
— A shot from the ranch-house verandah — The Columbian
blacktail 44-64

VOL. I.

IX

X Contents

CHAPTER IV

ON THE CATTLE RANGES; THE PRONGHORN ANTELOPE

Riding to the round-up — The open plains — Sights and
sounds — Gophers, prairie dogs, sharp-tail grouse, antelope —
The cow-camp — Standing night guard — Dawn — Make an an-
telope hunt — An easy stalk — A difficult stalk — Three antelope
shot — The plains skylark — The meadow lark — The mocking-
bird— Other singers — Harsher wilderness sounds — Pack-rats
— Plains ferret, its ferocity — The war eagle — Attacks antelope
— Kills jack-rabbit — One shot on wing with rifle 65-86

CHAPTER V

HUNTING THE PRONGBUCK; FROST, FIRE, AND THIRST

Hunting the prongbuck — Long shots — Misses — Winter
weather — A hiuit in December — Riding in the bitter cold —
The old hunter's tepee — A night in a line camp — An antelope
herd — Two bucks shot — Riding back to ranch — The immi-
grant train — Hunting in fall — Fighting fire — A summer hunt
— Sufferings from thirst — Swimming cattle across a swollen
stream — Wagon-trip to the Black Hills — The great prairies —
A prongbuck shot — Pleasant camp — Buck shot in morning
— Continue our journey — Shooting sage-fowl and prairie-fowl
with rifle 87-1 1 7

CHAPTER VI

AMONG THE HIGH HILLS; THE BIGHORN OR MOUNTAIN SHEEP

A summer on the ranch — Working among the cattle — Kill-
ing game for the ranch — A trip after mountain sheep — The
Bad Lands — Solitary camp — The old horse Manitou — Still-
hunt at dawn — Young ram shot — A hunt in the Rocky
Mountains — An old bighorn stalked and shot — Habits of the
game 1 18-130

Contents xi

CHAPTER VII

MOUNTAIN game; THE WHITE-GOAT

A trip to the Bighole Basin — Incidents of travel with a
wagon — Camp among the moiintains — -A trip on foot after
goats — Spruce grouse — Lying out at night — A cHmb over the
high peaks — Two goats shot — Weary tramp back — A hunt in
the Kootenai coumtry — Hard cHmbing among the wooded
mountains — Goat shot on brink of chasm — Ptarmigan for
supper — Goat hunting very hard work — Ways and habits of
the goats — Not much decrease in numbers. . , 1 31-154

CHAPTER VIII

HUNTING IN THE SELKIRKS; THE CARIBOU

A camp on Kootenai Lake — Travelling on foot through the
dense forests — Excessive toil — Water-shrew and water- thrush
- — Black bear killed — Mountain climbing — Woodchucks and
conies — The Indian Animal — Night sounds — A long walk —
A caribou killed — A midwinter trip on snow-shoes in Maine —
Footprints on the snow — ^A helpless deer — Caribou' at ease in
the deep drifts 155-183

CHAPTER IX

THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK

A hunt in the Bitter Root Mountains — A trip on foot — Two
bull elk fighting — The peace-maker — All three shot — Habits
of the wapiti — Their bungling — A grand chorus— Shooting a
bull at sunrise — Another killed near the ranch — Vanishing of
the elk — Its antlers — The lynx — Porcupine — Chickarees and
chipmunks — Clarke's crow — Lewis's woodpecker — Whisky-
iack — Trout — The Yellowstone canyon 184-208

xii Contents

CHAPTER X

AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS

In the Shoshones — Travelling with a pack-train — Scenery
— Flowers — A squaw-man — Bull elk shot in rain while chal-
lenging— Storm — Breaking camp in rain — Two- Ocean Pass —
Our camp — A young ten-pointer shot — The mountains in
moonlight — Blue grouse — Snow-shoe rabbits — Death of a
master bull — The Tetons — Following a bull by scent — 111
luck — Luck changes — Death of spike bull — Three bulls killed
— Travelling home — Heavy snowstorm — Bucking horse —
Various hunts compared — Number cartridges used — Still-
himting the elk 209-239

CHAPTER XI

THE moose; THE BEAST OF THE WOODLAND

The moose of the Rocky Mountains — Its habits — Difficult
nature of its haunts — Repeated failures while hunting it —
Watching a marsh at dawn — A moose in the reeds — Stalking
and shooting him — Travelling light with a pack-train — A
beaver meadow — Shooting a big bull at dawn — The moose in
summer, in winter — Young moose — Pugnacity of moose —
Still-hunting moose — Rather more easy to kill than whitetail
deer — At times a dangerous antagonist — The winter yards —
Hunting on snow-shoes — A narrow escape — A fatal en-
counter 240-2 7 1

THE

WILDERNESS HUNTER

THE WILDERNESS
HUNTER

CHAPTER I

THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS; WILDERNESS
HUNTERS AND WILDERNESS GAME

M

ANIFOLD are the shapes taken by the
American wilderness. In the east, from
the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi val-
ley, lies a land of magnificent hardwood forest. In
endless variety and beauty, the trees cover the
ground, save only where they have been cleared
away by man, or where towards the west the ex-
panse of the forest is broken by fertile prairies.
Towards the north, this region of hardwood trees
merges insensibly into the southern extension of
the great subarctic forest; here the silver stems
of birches gleam against the sombre background
of coniferous evergreens. In the southeast again,
by the hot, oozy coasts of the South Atlantic and
the Gulf, the forest becomes semi-tropical ; palms
wave their feathery fronds, and the tepid swamps
teem with reptile life.

VOL. I. — I.

2 The Wilderness Hunter

Some distance beyond the Mississippi, stretch-
ing from Texas to North Dakota, and westward to
the Rocky Mountains, lies the plains country.
This is a region of light rainfall, where the ground
is clad with short grass, while cottonwood trees
fringe the courses of the winding plains streams;
streams that are alternately turbid torrents and
mere dwindling threads of water. The great
stretches of natural pasture are broken by gray
sage-brush plains and tracts of strangely shaped
and colored Bad Lands; sun-scorched wastes in
summer, and in winter arctic in their iron desola-
tion. Beyond the plains rise the Rocky Moun-
tains, their flanks covered with coniferous woods ;
but the trees are small, and do not ordinarily grow
very closely together. Towards the north the
forest becomes denser, and the peaks higher ; and
glaciers creep down towards the valleys from the
fields of everlasting snow. The brooks are brawl-
ing, trout-filled torrents; the swift rivers foam
over rapid and cataract, on their way to one or the
other of the two great oceans.

Southwest of the Rockies evil and terrible des-
erts stretch for leagues and leagues, mere waterless
wastes of sandy plain and barren mountain,
broken here and there by narrow strips of fertile
ground. Rain rarely falls, and there are no
clouds to dim the brazen sun. The rivers run in
deep canyons, or are swallowed by the burning

The American Wilderness 3

sand; the smaller watercourses are dry through-
out the greater part of the year.

Beyond this desert region rise the sunny Sierras
of California, with their flower-clad slopes and
groves of giant trees; and north of them, along
the coast, the rain-shrouded mountain chains of
Oregon and Washington, matted with the tower-
ing growth of the mighty evergreen forest.

The white hunters, who from time to time first
penetrated the different parts of this wilderness,
found themselves in such hunting-grounds as
those wherein, long ages before, their Old- World
forefathers had dwelt ; and the game they chased
was much the same as that their lusty barbarian
ancestors followed, with weapons of bronze and
of iron, in the dim years before history dawned.
As late as the end of the seventeenth century the
turbulent village nobles of Lithuania and Livonia
hunted the bear, the bison, the elk, the wolf, and
the stag, and hung the spoils in their smoky
wooden palaces ; and so, two hundred years later,
the free hunters of Montana, in the interludes be-
tween hazardous mining quests and bloody In-
dian campaigns, hunted game almost or quite the
same in kind, through the cold mountain forests
surrounding the Yellowstone and Flathead lakes,
and decked their log cabins and ranch-houses with
the hides and horns of the slaughtered beasts.

Zoologically speaking, the north temperate

4 The Wilderness Hunter

zones of the Old and New Worlds are very similar,
differing from one another much less than they do
from the various regions south of them, or than
these regions differ among themselves. The un-
trodden American wilderness resembles, both in
game and physical character, the forests, the moun-
tains, and the steppes of the Old World as it was
at the beginning of our era. Great woods of pine
and fir, birch and beech, oak and chestnut ; streams
where the chief game fish are spotted trout and
silvery salmon; grouse of various kinds as the
most common game birds, — all these the hunter
finds as characteristic of the New World as of the
Old. So it is with most of the beasts of the chase,
and so also with the fur-bearing animals that fur-
nish to the trapper alike his life-work and his means
of livelihood. The bear, wolf, bison, moose, cari-
bou, wapiti, deer, and bighorn, the lynx, fox,
wolverine, sable, mink, ermine, beaver, badger,
and otter of both worlds are either identical or
more or less closely kin to one another. Some-
times of the two forms, that found in the Old
World is the larger. Perhaps more often the re-
verse is true, the American beast being superior in
size. This is markedly the case with the wapiti,
which is merely a giant brother of the European
stag, exactly as the fisher is merely a very large
cousin of the European sable or marten. The ex-
traordinary prong-buck, the only hollow-homed

The American Wilderness 5

ruminant which sheds its horns annually, is a dis-
tant representative of the Old- World antelopes of
the steppes ; the queer white antelope-goat has for
its nearest kinsfolk certain Himalayan species. Of
the animals commonly known to our hunters and
trappers, only a few, such as the cougar, peccary,
raccoon, possum (and among birds the wild tur-
key), find their nearest representatives and type
forms in tropical America.

Of course, this general resemblance does not
mean identity. The differences in plant life and
animal life, no less than in the physical features of
the land, are sufficiently marked to give the Amer-
ican wilderness a character distinctly its own.
Some of the most characteristic of the woodland
animals, some of those which have most vividly
impressed themselves on the imagination of the
hunters and pioneer settlers, are the very ones
which have no Old- World representatives. The
wild turkey is in every way the king of American
game birds. Among the small beasts the coon
and the possum are those which have left the
deepest traces in the humbler lore of the frontier ;
exactly as the cougar — usually under the name of
panther or mountain lion — is a favorite figure in
the wilder hunting tales. Nowhere else is there
anything to match the wealth of the eastern hard-
wood forests in number, variety, and beauty of
trees; nowhere else is it possible to find conifers

6 The Wilderness Hunter

approaching in size the giant redwoods and se-
quoias of the Pacific slope. Nature here is generally
on a larger scale than in the Old- World home of
our race. The lakes are like inland seas, the rivers
like arms of the sea. Among stupendous moun-
tain chains there are valleys and canyons of fath-
omless depth and incredible beauty and majesty.
There are tropical swamps and sad, frozen marshes ;
deserts and Death Valleys, weird and evil, and the
strange wonderland of the Wyoming geyser re-
gion. The waterfalls are rivers rushing over preci-
pices; the prairies seem without limit, and the
forest never ending.

At the time when we first became a nation, nine
tenths of the territory now included within the
limits of the United States was wilderness. It was
during the stirring and troubled years immediately
preceding the outbreak of the Revolution that
the most adventurous hunters, the vanguard of the
hardy army of pioneer settlers, first crossed the
Alleghanies, and roamed far and wide through
the lonely, danger-haunted forests which filled
the No-man's-land lying between the Tennessee
and the Ohio. They waged ferocious warfare with
Shawnee and Wyandott and wrought huge havoc
among the herds of game with which the forest
teemed. While the first Continental Congress was
still sitting, Daniel Boon, the archetype of the
American hunter, was leading his bands of tall

The American Wilderness 7

backwoods riflemen to settle in the beautiful
coimtry of Kentucky, where the red and the white
warriors strove with such obstinate rage that both
races alike grew to know it as "the dark and
bloody ground."

Boon and his fellow-hunters were the heralds
of the oncoming civilization, the pioneers in that
conquest of the wilderness which has at last been
practically achieved in our own day. Where they
pitched their camps and built their log huts or
stockaded hamlets, towns grew up, and men who
were tillers of the soil, not mere wilderness wan-
derers, thronged in to take and hold the land.
Then, ill at ease among the settlements for which
they had themselves made ready the way, and
fretted even by the slight restraints of the rude
and uncouth semi-civilization of the border, the
restless hunters moved onward into the yet un-
broken wilds where the game dwelt and the red
tribes marched forever to war and hunting. Their
untamable souls ever found something congenial
and beyond measure attractive in the lawless free-
dom of the lives of the very savages against whom
they warred so bitterly.

Step by step, often leap by leap, the frontier of
settlement was pushed westward; and ever from
before its advance fled the warrior tribes of the
red men and the scarcely less intractable array of
white Indian fighters and game hunters. When

8 The Wilderness Hunter

the Revolutionary War was at its height, George
Rogers Clark, himself a mighty hunter of the old
backwoods type, led his handful of hunter-soldiers
to the conquest of the French towns of the Illinois.
This was but one of the many notable feats of
arms performed by the wild soldiery of the back-
woods. Clad in their fringed and tasselled
hunting shirts of buckskin or homespun, with coon-
skin caps and deerhide leggings and moccasins,
with tomahawk and scalping-knife thrust into
their bead-worked belts, and long rifles in hand,
they fought battle after battle of the most bloody
character, both against the Indians, as at the
Great Kanawha, at the Fallen Timbers, and at
Tippecanoe, and against more civilized foes, as at
King's Mountain, New Orleans, and the River
Thames.

Soon after the beginning of the present century
Louisiana fell into our hands, and the most daring
hunters and explorers pushed through the forests
of the Mississippi valley to the great plains,
steered across these vast seas of grass to the Rocky
Mountains, and then through their rugged defiles
onwards to the Pacific Ocean. In every work of
exploration, and in all the earlier battles with the
original lords of the western and southwestern
lands, whether Indian or Mexican, the adven-
turous hunters played the leading part; while
close behind came the swarm of hard, dogged,

The American Wilderness 9

border-farmers, — a masterful race, good fighters
and good breeders, as all masterful races must be.
Very characteristic in its way was the career of
quaint, honest, fearless Davy Crockett, the Ten-
nessee rifleman and Whig Congressman, perhaps
the best shot in all our country, whose skill in the
use of his favorite weapon passed into a proverb,
and who ended his days by a hero's death in the
ruins of the Alamo. An even more notable man
was another mighty hunter, Houston, who when a
boy ran away to the Indians ; who while still a lad
returned to his own people to serve under Andrew
Jackson in the campaigns which that greatest of
all the backwoods leaders waged against the
Creeks, the Spaniards, and the British. He was
wounded at the storming of one of the strong-
holds of Red Eagle's doomed warriors, and re-
turned to his Tennessee home to rise to high civil
honor, and become the foremost man of his State.
Then, while Governor of Tennessee, in a sudden
fit of moody anger, and of mad longing for the un-
fettered life of the wilderness, he abandoned his
office, his people, and his race, and fled to the
Cherokees beyond the Mississippi. For years he
lived as one of their chiefs ; until one day, as he
lay in ignoble ease and sloth, a rider from the south,
from the rolling plains of the San Antonio and
Brazos, brought word that the Texans were up,
and in doubtful struggle striving to wrest their

lo The Wilderness Hunter

freedom from the lancers and carbineers of Santa
Anna. Then his dark soul flamed again into
burning life; riding by night and day he joined
the risen Texans, was hailed by them as a heaven-
sent leader, and at the San Jacinto led them on to
the overthrow of the Mexican host. Thus the
stark hunter, who had been alternately Indian
fighter and Indian chief, became the President of
the new Republic, and, after its admission into
the United States, a Senator at Washington ; and,
to his high honor, he remained to the end of his
days staunchly loyal to the flag of the Union.

By the time that Crockett fell, and Houston be-
came the darling leader of the Texans, the typical
hunter and Indian fighter had ceased to be a
backwoodsman; he had become a plainsman, or
mountain-man ; for the frontier, east of which he
never willingly went, had been pushed beyond the
Mississippi. Restless, reckless, and hardy, he
spent years of his life in lonely wanderings through
the Rockies as a trapper; he guarded the slow-
moving caravans, which for purposes of trade
journeyed over the dangerous Santa Fe trail; he
guided the large parties of frontier settlers who,
driving before them their cattle, with all their
household goods in their white-topped wagons,
spent perilous months and seasons on their weary
way to Oregon or California. Joining in bands,
the stalwart, skin-clad riflemen waged ferocious

The American Wilderness 1 1

war on the Indians, scarcely more savage than
themselves, or made long raids for plunder and
horses against the outlying Mexican settlements.
The best, the bravest, the most modest of them all,
was the renowned Kit Carson. He was not only a
mighty hunter, a daring fighter, a finder of trails,
and maker of roads through the unknown, untrod-
den wilderness, but also a real leader of men.
Again and again he crossed and re-crossed the
continent, from the Mississippi to the Pacific ; he
guided many of the earliest military and explor-
ing expeditions of the United States Govern-
ment; he himself led the troops in victorious
campaigns against Apache and Navahoe ; and in
the Civil War he was made a colonel of the
Federal army.

After him came many other hunters. Most
were pure-blooded Americans, but many were
Creole Frenchmen, Mexicans, or even members of
the so-called civilized Indian tribes, notably the
Dela wares. Wide were their wanderings, many
their strange adventures in the chase, bitter their
unending warfare with the red lords of the land.
Hither and thither they roamed, from the deso-
late, burning deserts of the Colorado to the grassy
plains of the upper Missouri ; from the rolling
Texas prairies, bright beneath their sunny skies,
to the high snow peaks of the northern Rockies,
or the giant pine forests and soft, rainy weather

12 The Wilderness Hunter

of the coasts of Puget Sound. Their main busi-
ness was trapping, furs being the only articles
yielded by the wilderness, as they knew it, which
were both valuable and portable. These early
hunters were all trappers likewise, and, indeed,
used their rifles only to procure meat or repel at-
tacks. The chief of the fur-bearing animals they
followed was the beaver, which abounded in the
streams of the plains and mountains; in the far
north they also trapped otter, mink, sable, and
fisher. They married squaws from among the In-
dian tribes with which they happened for the mo-
ment to be at peace ; they acted as scouts for the
United States troops in their campaigns against
the tribes with which they happened to be at
war.

Soon after the Civil War the life of these hunters,
taken as a class, entered on its final stage. The
Pacific coast was already fairly well settled, and
there were a few mining camps in the Rockies ; but
most of this Rocky Mountains region, and the en-
tire stretch of plains country proper, the vast belt
of level or rolling grass -land lying between the Rio
Grande and the Saskatchewan, still remained pri-
meval wilderness, inhabited only by roving hunters
and formidable tribes of Indian nomads, and by
the huge herds of game on which they preyed.
Beaver swarmed in the streams and yielded a rich
harvest to the trapper; but trapping was no

The American Wilderness 13

longer the mainstay of the adventurous plainsmen.
Foremost among the beasts of the chase, on ac-
count of its numbers, its size, and its economic im-
portance, was the bison, or American buffalo ; its
innumerable multitudes darkened the limitless
prairies. As the transcontinental railroads were
pushed towards completion, and the tide of settle-
ment rolled onwards with ever increasing rapidity,
buffalo robes became of great value. The hunters
forthwith turned their attention mainly to the
chase of the great, clumsy beasts, slaughtering
them by hundreds of thousands for their hides;
sometimes killing them on horseback, but more
often on foot, by still-hunting, with the heavy,
long-range Sharp's rifle. Throughout the fifteen
years during which this slaughter lasted, a succes-
sion of desperate wars was waged with the banded
tribes of the Horse Indians. All the time, in un-
ending succession, long trains of big white-topped
wagons crept slowly westward across the prairies,
marking the steady oncoming of the frontier
settlers.

By the close of 1883 the last buffalo herd was
destroyed. The beaver were trapped out of all
the streams, or their numbers so thinned that it no
longer paid to follow them. The last formidable
Indian war had been brought to a successful close.
The flood of the incoming whites had risen over
the land ; tongues of settlement reached from the

14 The Wilderness Hunter

Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, and from the
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. The frontier
had come to an end ; it had vanished. With it
vanished also the old race of wilderness hunters,
the men who spent all their days in the lonely
wilds, and who killed game as their sole means of
livelihood. Great stretches of wilderness still re-
main in the Rocky Mountains, and here and there
in the plains country, exactly as much smaller
tracts of wild land are to be found in the Alle-
ghanies and northern New York and New Eng-
land ; and on these tracts occasional hunters and
trappers still linger; but as a distinctive class,
with a peculiar and important position in Amer-
ican life, they no longer exist.

There were other men beside the professional
hunters, who lived on the borders of the wilder-
ness, and followed hunting, not only as a pastime,
but also as yielding an important portion of their
subsistence. The frontier farmers were all hunt-
ers. In the eastern backwoods, and in certain
places in the west, as in Oregon, these adven-
turous tillers of the soil were the pioneers among
the actual settlers ; in the Rockies their places were
taken by the miners, and on the great plains by the
ranchmen and cowboys, the men who lived in the
saddle, guarding their branded herds of horses and
horned stock. Almost all of the miners and cow-
boys were obliged on occasions to turn hunters.

The American Wilderness 15

Moreover, the regular army which played so im-
portant a part in all the later stages of the winning
of the west produced its full share of mighty hunt-
ers. The later Indian wars were fought princi-
pally by the regulars. The West Point officer and
his little company of trained soldiers appeared
abreast of the first hardy cattlemen and miners.
The ordinary settlers rarely made their appear-
ance until, in campaign after campaign, always
inconceivably wearing and harrassing, and often
very bloody in character, the scarred and tattered
troops had broken and overthrown the most for-
midable among the Indian tribes. Faithful, un-
complaining, unflinching, the soldiers wearing the
national uniform lived for many weary years at
their lonely little posts, facing unending toil and
danger with quiet endurance, surrounded by the
desolation of vast solitudes, and menaced by the
most merciless of foes. Hunting was followed
not only as a sport, but also as the only means of
keeping the posts and the expeditionary trains in
meat. Many of the officers became equally pro-
ficient as marksmen and hunters. The three most
famous Indian fighters since the Civil War, Gen-
erals Custer, Miles, and Crook, were all keen and
successful followers of the chase.

Of American big game the bison, almost always
known as the buffalo, was the largest and most im-
portant to man. When the first white settlers

i6 The Wilderness Hunter

landed in Virginia the bison ranged east of the
AUeghanies almost to the sea-coast, westward to
the dry deserts lying beyond the Rocky Mountains,
northward to the Great Slave Lake and south-
ward to Chihuahua. It was a beast of the forests
and mountains, in the AUeghanies no less than in
the Rockies ; but its true home was on the prairies
and the high plains. Across these it roamed
hither and thither, in herds of enormous, of in-
credible, magnitude ; herds so large that they cov-
ered the waving grass -land for hundreds of square
leagues, and when on the march occupied days
and days in passing a given point. But the seeth-
ing myriads of shaggy-maned wild cattle vanished
with remarkable and melancholy rapidity before
the inroads of the white hunters and the steady
march of the oncoming settlers. Now they are on
the point of extinction. Two or three hundred
are left in that great national game preserve, the
Yellowstone Park; and it is said that others still
remain in the wintry desolation of Athabasca.
Elsewhere, only a few individuals exist — probably
considerably less than half a hundred all told —
scattered in small parties in the wildest and most
inaccessible portions of the Rocky Mountains. A
bison bull is the largest American animal. His
huge bulk, his short, curved black horns, the
shaggy mane clothing his great neck and shoulders,
give him a look of ferocity which his conduct be-

The American Wilderness 17

lies. Yet he is truly a grand and noble beast,
and his loss from our prairies and forests is as
keenly regretted by the lover of nature and of
wild life as by the hunter.

Next to the bison in size, and much superior in
height to it and to all other American game — for
it is taller than the tallest horse — comes the moose,
or broad-horned elk. It is a strange, uncouth-
looking beast, with very long legs, short, thick
neck, a big, ungainly head, a swollen nose
and huge shovel horns. Its home is in the
cold, wet pine and spruce forests, which stretch
from the subarctic region of Canada southward in
certain places across our frontier. Two centuries
ago it was found as far south as Massachusetts. It
has now been exterminated from its former haunts
in northern New York and Vermont, and is on the
point of vanishing from northern Michigan. It is
still found in northern Maine and northeastern
Minnesota and in portions of northern Idaho and
Washington; while along the Rockies it extends
its range southward through western Montana to
northwestern Wyoming, south of the Tetons. In
1884 I saw the fresh hide of one that was killed in
the Bighorn Mountains.

The wapiti, or round-horned elk, like the bison,
and unlike the moose, had its centre of abun-
dance in the United States, though extending
northward into Canada. Originally, its range

VOL. I.— 2.

1 8 The Wilderness Hunter

reached from ocean to ocean and it went in herds
of thousands of individuals; but it has suffered
more from the persecution of hunters than any-
other game except the bison. By the beginning
of this century it had been exterminated in most
locaHties east of the Mississippi; but a few Hn-
gered on for many years in the Alleghanies. Col-
onel Cecil Clay informs me that an Indian whom
he knew killed one in Pennsylvania in 1869. A
very few still exist here and there in northern
Michigan and Minnesota, and in one or two spots
on the western boundary of Nebraska and the
Dakotas; but it is now properly a beast of the
wooded western mountains. It is still plentiful
in western Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana,
and in parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
Though not as large as the moose, it is the most
beautiful and stately of all animals of the deer
kind, and its antlers are marvels of symmetrical
grandeur.

The woodland caribou is inferior to the wapiti
both in size and symmetry. The tips of the many
branches of its long, irregular antlers are slightly
palmated. Its range is the same as that of the
moose, save that it does not go so far southward.
Its hoofs are long and round; even larger than
the long, oval hoofs of the moose, and much
larger than those of the wapiti. The tracks of
all three can be told apart at a glance, and can-

The American Wilderness 19

not be mistaken for the footprints of other game.
Wapiti tracks, however, look much Hke those of
yearling and two-year-old cattle, unless the
ground is steep and muddy, in which case the
marks of the false hoofs appear, the joints of
wapiti being more flexible than those of domestic
stock.

The whitetail deer is now, as it always has
been, the best known and most abundant of
American big game, and though its numbers
have been greatly thinned it is still found in
almost every State of the Union. The common
blacktail, or mule deer, which has likewise been
sadly thinned in numbers, though once extra-
ordinarily abundant, extends from the great
plains to the Pacific; but is supplanted on the
Puget Sound coast by the Columbian blacktail.
The delicate, heart-shaped footprints of all three
are nearly indistinguishable; when the animal is
running the hoof -points are of course separated.
The track of the antelope is more oval, growing
squarer with age. Mountain sheep leave foot-
marks of a squarer shape, the points of the hoof
making little indentations in the soil, well apart,
even when the animal is only walking; and a
yearling's track is not unlike that made by a
big prong-buck when striding rapidly with the
toes well apart. White-goat tracks are also
square, and as large as those of the sheep; but

20 The Wilderness Hunter

there is less indentation of the hoof -points, which
come nearer together.

The antelope, or prongbuck, was once found
in abundance from the eastern edge of the great
plains to the Pacific, but it has everywhere dimin-
ished in numbers, and has been exterminated
along the eastern and western borders of its for-
mer range. The bighorn, or mountain sheep, is
found in the Rocky Mountains from northern
Mexico to Alaska ; and in the United States from
the Coast and Cascade ranges to the Bad Lands
of the western edges of the Dakotas, wherever
there are mountain chains or tracts of rugged
hills. It was never very abundant, and, though
it has become less so, it has held its own better
than most game. The white -goat, however, alone
among our game animals, has positively increased
in numbers since the advent of settlers; because
white hunters rarely follow it, and the Indians
who once sought its skin for robes now use blank-
ets instead. Its true home is in Alaska and
Canada, but it crosses our borders along the
lines of the Rockies and Cascades, and a few
small isolated colonies are found here and there
southward to California and New Mexico.

The cougar and wolf, once common through-
out the United States, have now completely dis-
appeared from all save the wildest regions. The
black bear holds its own better; it was never

The American Wilderness 21

found on the great plains. The huge grisly ranges
from the great plains to the Pacific. The little
peccary, or Mexican wild hog, merely crosses our
southern border.

The finest hunting-ground in America was, and
indeed is, the mountainous region of western
Montana and northwestern Wyoming. In this
high, cold land o^ lofty mountains, deep forests,
and open prairies, with its beautiful lakes and
rapid rivers, all the species of big game men-
tioned above, except the peccary and Columbian
blacktail, are to be found. Until 1880 they were
very abundant, and they are still, with the ex-
ception of the bison, fairly plentiful. On most
of the long hunting expeditions which I made
away from my ranch, I went into this region.

The bulk of my hunting has been done in the
cattle country, near my ranch on the Little Mis-
souri, and in the adjoining lands round the lower
Powder and Yellowstone. Until 1881 the valley
of the Little Missouri was fairly thronged with
game, and was absolutely unchanged in any re-
spect from its original condition of primeval
wildness. With the incoming of the stockmen
all this changed, and the game was wofully
slaughtered; but plenty of deer and antelope, a
few sheep and bear, and an occasional elk are
still left.

Since the professional hunters have vanished

22 The Wilderness Hunter

with the vast herds of game on which they preyed,
the Hfe of the ranchman is that which yields most
chance of hunting. Life on a cattle ranch, on the
great plains or among the foothills of the high
mountains, has a peculiar attraction for those
hardy, adventurous spirits who take most kindly
to a vigorous out-of-door existence, and who are
therefore most apt to care passionately for the
chase of big game. The free ranchman lives in
a wild, lonely coimtry, and exactly as he breaks
and tames his own horses, and guards and tends
his own branded herds, so he takes the keenest
enjoyment in the chase, which is to him not
merely the pleasantest of sports, but also a means
of adding materially to his comforts, and often
his only method of providing himself with fresh
meat.

Hunting in the wilderness is of all pastimes
the most attractive, and it is doubly so when not
carried on merely as a pastime. Shooting over
a private game preserve is of course in no way to
be compared to it. The wilderness hunter must
not only show skill in the use of the rifle and ad-
dress in finding and approaching game, but he
must also show the qualities of hardihood, self-
reliance, and resolution needed for effectively
grappling with his wild surroundings. The fact
that the hunter needs the game, both for its meat
and for its hide, undoubtedly adds a zest to the

The Wilderness Hunter 23

pursuit. Among the hunts which I have most
enjoyed were those made when I was engaged in
getting in the winter's stock of meat for my ranch,
or was keeping some party of cowboys supplied
with game from day to day.

CHAPTER II

HUNTING FROM THE RANCH ; THE BLACKTAIL DEER

NO life can be pleasanter than life during the
months of fall on a ranch in the northern
cattle country. The weather is cool; in
the evenings and on the rare rainy days we are
glad to sit by the great fireplace, with its roaring
Cottonwood logs. But on most days not a cloud
dims the serene splendor of the sky ; and the fresh
pure air is clear with the wonderful clearness of
the high plains. We are in the saddle from morn-
ing to night..

The long, low, roomy ranch-house, of clean
hewed logs, is as comfortable as it is bare and
plain. We fare simply but well; for the wife of
my foreman makes excellent bread and cake, and
there are plenty of potatoes grown in the forlorn
little garden-patch on the bottom. We also have
jellies and jams, made from wild plums and buf-
falo berries ; and all the milk we can drink. For
meat, we depend on our rifles ; and, with an occa-
sional interlude of ducks or prairie-chickens, the
mainstay of each meal is venison — roasted,
broiled, or fried.

24

Hunting from the Ranch 25

Sometimes we shoot the deer when we happen
on them while about our ordinary business, — in-
deed, throughout the time that I have Hved on
the ranch, very many of the deer and antelope
I killed were thus obtained. Of course, while
doing the actual round-up work it is impossible
to attend to anything else ; but we generally carry
rifles while riding after the saddle band in the
early morning, while visiting the line camps, or
while in the saddle among the cattle on the range,
and get many a shot in this fashion.

In the fall of 1890 some friends came to my
ranch ; and one day we took them to see a round-
up. The OX, a Texan steer-outfit, had sent a
couple of wagons to work down the river, after
beef cattle, and one of my men had gone along
to gather any of my own scattered steers that were
ready for shipping, and to brand the late calves.
There were perhaps a dozen riders with the
wagons ; and they were camped for the day on a
big bottom where Blacktail and Whitetail creeks
open into the river, several miles below my ranch.

At dawn one of the men rode off to bring in
the saddle band. The rest of us were up by sun-
rise; and as we stood on the verandah under the
shimmering cotton wood trees, revelling in the
blue and cloudless sky, and drinking in the cool
air before going to breakfast, we saw the motley-
colored string of ponies file down from the opposite

26 The Wilderness Hunter

bank of the river, and splash across the broad
shallow ford in front of the ranch -house. Canter-
ing and trotting, the band swept towards the high,
round horse-corral, in the open glade to the rear
of the house. Guided by the jutting wing which
stuck out at right angles, they entered the open
gate, which was promptly closed by the cowboy
who had driven them in.

After breakfast we strolled over to the corral,
with our lariats, and, standing by the snubbing-
post in the middle, roped the horses we wished for
the party — some that were gentle, and others that
'were not. Then every man saddled his horse ; and
at the moment of mounting for the start there was,
as always, a thrill of mild excitement, each rider
hoping that his own horse would not buck, and
that his neighbor's would. I had no young horses
on the ranch at the time; but a number of the
older ones still possessed some of the least amiable,
traits of their youth.

Once in the saddle we rode off down river, along
the bottoms, crossing the stream again and again.
We went in Indian file, as is necessary among the
trees and in broken ground, following the cattle
trails — which themselves had replaced or broad-
ened the game paths that alone crossed the pla-
teaus and bottoms when my ranch-house was first
built. Now we crossed open reaches of coarse
grass, thinly sprinkled with large, brittle cotton-

Hunting from the Ranch 27

wood trees, their branches torn and splintered;
now we wound our way through a dense jungle
where the gray, thorny buffalo bushes, spangled
with brilliant red berry -clusters, choked the spaces
between the thick-growing box-alders ; and again
the sure-footed ponies scrambled down one cut
bank and up another, through seemingly impos-
sible rifts, or with gingerly footsteps trod a path
which cut the side of a butte or overhung a bluff.
Sometimes we racked, or shacked along at the
fox trot which is the cow-pony's ordinary gait;
and sometimes we loped or galloped and ran.

At last we came to the ford beyond which the
riders of the round-up had made their camp. In
the bygone days of the elk and buffalo, when our
branded cattle were first driven thus far north,
this ford had been dangerous from quicksand;
but the cattle, ever crossing and re-crossing, had
trodden down and settled the sand, and had found
out the firm places; so that it was now easy to
get over.

Close beyond the trees on the farther bank stood
the two round-up wagons ; near by was the cook's
fire, in a trench, so that it might not spread ; the
bedding of the riders and horse-wranglers lay scat-
tered about, each roll of blankets wrapped and
corded in a stout canvas sheet. The cook was
busy about the fire; the night-wrangler was
snatching an hour or two 's sleep under one of

28 The Wilderness Hunter

the wagons. Half a mile away, on the plain of
sage-brush and long grass, the day-wrangler was
guarding the grazing ©r resting horse herd, of over
a hundred head. Still farther distant, at the
mouth of a ravine, was the day-herd of cattle,
two or three cowboys watching it as they lolled
drowsily in their saddles. The other riders were
off on circles to bring in cattle to the round-up;
they were expected every moment.

With the ready hospitality always shown in
a cow-camp we were pressed to alight and take
dinner, or at least a lunch; and accordingly we
jumped off our horses and sat down. Our tin
plates were soon heaped with fresh beef, bread,
tomatoes, rice, and potatoes, all very good; for
the tall, bearded, scrawny cook knew his work,
and the OX outfit always fed its men well — and
saw that they worked well, too.

Before noon the circle riders began to appear on
the plain, coming out of the ravines, and scram-
bling down the steep hills, singly or in twos and
threes. They herded before them bunches of
cattle, of varying size; these were driven to-
gether and left in charge of a couple of cow-
punchers. The other men rode to the wagon to
get a hasty dinner — lithe, sinewy fellows, with
weather-roughened faces and fearless eyes; their
broad felt hats flapped as they galloped, and their
spurs and bridle chains jingled. They rode well,

Hunting from the Ranch 29

with long stirrups, sitting straight in the deep
stock saddles, and their wiry ponies showed no
signs of fatigue from the long morning's ride.

The horse-wrangler soon drove the saddle band
to the wagons, where it was caught in a quickly
improvised rope-corral. The men roped fresh
horses, fitted for the cutting- work round the herd,
with its attendant furious galloping and flash-like
turning and twisting. In a few minutes all were
in the saddle again and riding towards the cattle.

Then began that scene of excitement and tur-
moil, and seeming confusion, but real method and
orderliness, so familiar to all who have engaged in
stock-growing on the great plains. The riders
gathered in a wide ring round the herd of uneasy
cattle, and a couple of men rode into their midst
to cut out the beef steers and the cows that were
followed by unbranded calves. As soon as the
animal was picked out the cowboy began to drive
it slowly towards the outside of the herd, and
when it was near the edge he suddenly raced it
into the open. The beast would then start at
full speed and try to double back among its fel-
lows; while the trained cow-pony followed like a
shadow, heading it off at every turn. The riders
round that part of the herd opened out and the
chosen animal was speedily hurried off to some
spot, a few hundred yards distant, where it was
left under charge of another cowboy. The latter

30 The Wilderness Hunter

at first had his hands full in preventing his charge
from rejoining the herd ; for cattle dread nothing
so much as being separated from their comrades.
However, as soon as two or three others were
driven out, enough to form a little bunch, it be-
came a much easier matter to hold the *'cut," as
it is called. The cows and calves were put in one
place, the beeves in another; the latter were
afterwards run into the day -herd.

Meanwhile, from time to time some clean-
limbed young steer or heifer, able to run like an
antelope and double like a jack-rabbit, tried to
break out of the herd that was being worked,
when the nearest cowboy hurried in pursuit at top
speed and brought it back, after a headlong, break-
neck race, in which no heed was paid to brush,
fallen timber, prairie-dog holes, or cut banks. The
dust rose in little whirling clouds, and through it
dashed bolting cattle and galloping cowboys,
hither and thither, while the air was filled with the
shouts and laughter of the men, and the bellowing
of the herd.

As soon as the herd was worked it was turned
loose, while the cows and calves were driven over
to a large corral, where the branding was done. A
fire was speedily kindled, and in it were laid the
branding-irons of the different outfits represented
on the round-up. Then two of the best ropers
rode into the corral and began to rope the calves,

Hunting from the Ranch 31

round the hind legs by preference, but sometimes
round the head. The other men dismounted to
*' wrestle" and brand them. Once roped, the
calf, bawling and struggling, was swiftly dragged
near the fire, where one or two of the calf -wrestlers
grappled with and threw the kicking, plunging lit-
tle beast, and held it while it was branded. If the
calf was large the wrestlers had hard work; and
one or two young maverick bulls — that is, un-
branded yearling bulls, which had been passed by
in the round-ups of the preceding year — fought
viciously, bellowing and charging, and driving
some of the men up the sides of the corral, to the
boisterous delight of the others.

After watching the work for a little while we
left and rode homewards. Instead of going along
the river bottoms we struck back over the buttes.
From time to time we came out on some sharp
bluff overlooking the river. From these points of
vantage we could see for several miles up and
down the valley of the Little Missouri. The
level bottoms were walled in by rows of sheer
cliffs, and steep, grassy slopes. These bluff lines
were from a quarter of a mile to a mile apart;
they did not run straight, but in a succession of
curves, so as to look like the halves of many am-
phitheatres. Between them the river swept in
great bends from side to side ; the wide bed, brim-
ful during the time of freshets, now held but a thin

32 The Wilderness Hunter

stream of water. Some of the bottoms were cov-
ered only with grass and sage-brush ; others with a
dense jungle of trees; while yet others looked
like parks, the cottonwoods growing in curved
lines or in clumps scattered here and there.

On our way we came across a bunch of cattle,
among which the sharp eyes of my foreman de-
tected a maverick two-year-old heifer. He and
one of the cowboys at once got down their ropes
and rode after her ; the rest of us first rounding up
the bunch so as to give a fair start. After a sharp
run, one of the men, swinging his lariat round his
head, got close up ; in a second or two the noose
settled round the heifer's neck, and as it became
taut she was brought to with a jerk; immediately
afterwards the other man made his throw and
cleverly heeled her. In a trice the red heifer was
stretched helpless on the ground, the two fierce
little ponies, a pinto and a buckskin, keeping her
down on their own account, tossing their heads
and backing so that the ropes which led from the
saddle-horns to her head and hind feet never
slackened. Then we kindled a fire; one of the
cinch rings was taken off to serve as a branding-
iron, and the heifer speedily became our property
— for she was on our range.

When we reached the ranch it was still early,
and after finishing dinner it lacked over an hour
of sundown. Accordingly, we went for another

Hunting from the Ranch 33

ride; and I carried my rifle. We started up a
winding coulie which opened back of the ranch-
house; and after half an hour's canter clambered
up the steep head-ravines, and emerged on a high
ridge which went westward, straight as an arrow,
to the main divide between the Little Missouri
and the Big Beaver. Along this narrow, grassy
crest we loped and galloped ; we were so high that
we could look far and wide over all the country
round about. To the southward, across a dozen
leagues of rolling and broken prairie, loomed
Sentinel Butte, the chief landmark of all that re-
gion. Behind us, beyond the river, rose the weird
chaos of Bad Lands which at this point lie for
many miles east of the Little Missouri. Their
fantastic outlines were marked against the sky as
sharply as if cut with a knife ; their grim and for-
bidding desolation warmed into wonderful beauty
by the light of the dying sun. On our right, as we
loped onwards, the land sunk away in smooth
green-clad slopes and valleys; on our left it fell
in sheer walls. Ahead of us the sun was sinking
behind a mass of blood-red clouds ; and on either
hand the flushed skies were changing their tint to
a hundred hues of opal and amethyst. Our tire-
less little horses sprang under us, thrilling with
life; we were riding through a fairy world of
beauty and color and limitless space and freedom.
Suddenly, a short hundred yards in front, three

VOL. I. — 3.

34 The Wilderness Hunter

blacktail leaped out of a little glen and crossed our
path, with the peculiar bounding gait of their
kind. At once I sprang from my horse and,
kneeling, fired at the last and largest of the three.
My bullet sped too far back, but struck near the
hip, and the crippled deer went slowly down a
ravine. Running over a hillock to cut it off, I
found it in some brush a few hundred yards be-
yond and finished it with a second ball. Quickly
dressing it, I packed it on my horse, and trotted
back leading him; an hour afterwards we saw
through the waning light the quaint, home-like
outlines of the ranch-house.

After all, however, blacktail can only at times be
picked up by chance in this way. More often it is
needful to kill them by fair still-hunting, among
the hills or wooded mountains where they delight
to dwell. If hunted, they speedily become wary.
By choice they live in such broken country that
it is difficult to pursue them with hounds; and
they are by no means such water-loving animals
as whitetail. On the other hand, the land in
which they dwell is very favorable to the still
hunter who does not rely merely on stealth, but
who can walk and shoot well. They do not go on
the open prairie, and, if possible, they avoid deep
forests, while, being good climbers, they like hills-
In the mountains, therefore, they keep to what is
called park country, where glades alternate with

The Blacktail Deer 35

open groves. On the great plains they avoid both
the heavily timbered river bottoms and the vast
treeless stretches of level or rolling grass-land;
their chosen abode being the broken and hilly re-
gion, scantily wooded, which skirts almost every
plains river and forms a belt — sometimes very nar-
row, sometimes many miles in breadth — between
the alluvial bottom land and the prairies beyond.
In these Bad Lands dwarfed pines and cedars
grow in the canyon-like ravines and among the
high steep hills ; there are also basins and winding
coulies, filled with brush and shrubbery and small
elm or ash. In all such places the blacktail loves
to make its home.

I have not often hunted blacktail in the moun-
tains, because while there I was generally after
larger game ; but around my ranch I have killed
more of them than of any other game, and for me
their chase has always possessed a peculiar charm.
We hunt them in the loveliest season of the year,
the fall and early winter, when it is keen pleasure
merely to live out of doors. Sometimes we make
a regular trip, of several days' duration, taking
the ranch -wagon, with or without a tent, to some
rugged and little disturbed spot where the deer
are plenty; perhaps returning with eight or ten
carcasses, or even more — enough to last a long
while in cold weather. We often make such trips
while laying in our winter supply of meat.

36 The Wilderness Hunter

At other times we hunt directly from the ranch-
house. We catch our horses overnight, and are
in the saddle for an all-day's hunt long before the
first streak of dawn, possibly not returning until
some hours after nightfall. The early morning
and late evening are the best times for hunting
game, except in regions where it is hardly ever
molested, and where in consequence it moves
about more or less throughout the day.

During the rut, which begins in September, the
deer are in constant motion, and are often found
in bands. The necks of the bucks swell and their
sides grow gaunt; they chase the does all night
and their flesh becomes strong and stringy — far
inferior to that of the barren does and yearlings.
The old bucks then wage desperate conflicts with
one another, and bully their smaller brethren un-
mercifully. Unlike the elk, the blacktail, like the
whitetail, are generally silent in the rutting season.
They occasionally grunt when fighting ; and once,
on a fall evening, I heard two young bucks bark-
ing in a ravine back of my ranch-house, and crept
up and shot them; but this was a wholly excep-
tional instance.

At this time I hunt on foot, only using the horse
to carry me to and from the hunting-ground ; for
while rutting, the deer, being restless, do not try
to escape observation by lying still, and on the
other hand are apt to wander about and so are

The Blacktail Deer 37

easily seen from a distance. When I have
reached a favorable place I picket my horse and
go from vantage point to vantage point, carefully
scanning the hillsides, ravines, and brush coulies
from every spot that affords a wide outlook. The
quarry once seen, it may be a matter of hours, or
only of minutes, to approach it, accordingly as the
wind and cover are or are not favorable. The
walks for many miles over the hills, the exercise
of constant watchfulness, the excitement of the
actual stalk, and the still greater excitement of
the shot, combine to make still-hunting the black-
tail, in the sharp fall weather, one of the most
attractive of hardy outdoor sports. Then, after
the long, stumbling walk homewards, through the
cool gloom of the late evening, comes the meal of
smoking venison and milk and bread, and the
sleepy rest, lying on the bear-skins, or sitting in
the rocking-chair before the roaring fire, while
the icy wind moans outside.

Earlier in the season, while the does are still
nursing the fawns, and until the bucks have
cleaned the last vestiges of velvet from their ant-
lers, the deer lie very close, and wander round as
little as may be. In the spring and early summer,
in the ranch country, we hunt big game very
little, and then only antelope ; because in hunting
antelope there is no danger of killing aught but
bucks. About the first of August we begin tc

38 The Wilderness Hunter

hunt blacktail, but do not kill does until a month
later — and then only when short of meat. In the
early weeks of the deer season we frequently do
even the actual hunting on horseback instead of
on foot; because the deer at this time rarely ap-
pear in view, so as to afford chance for a stalk,
and yet are reluctant to break cover until very
closely approached. In consequence, we keep on
our horses, and so get over much more ground
than on foot, beating through or beside all likely
looking cover, with the object of jumping the deer
close by. Under such circumstances bucks some-
times lie until almost trodden on.

One afternoon in mid- August, when the ranch
was entirely out of meat, I started with one of
my cow-hands, Merrifield, to kill a deer. We were
on a couple of stout, quiet ponies, accustomed to
firing and to packing game. After riding a mile
or two down the bottoms we left the river and
struck off up a winding valley, which led back
among the hills. In a short while we were in a
blacktail country, and began to keep a sharp look-
out for game, riding parallel to, but some little
distance from, one another. The sun, beating
down through the clear air, was very hot; the
brown slopes of short grass, and still more the
white clay walls of the Bad Lands, threw the heat
rays in our faces. We skirted closely all likely-
looking spots, such as the heavy brush-patches in

The Blacktail Deer 39

the bottoms of the winding valleys, and the groves
of ash and elm in the basins and pockets flanking
the high plateaus ; sometimes we followed a cattle
trail which ran down the middle of a big washout,
and again we rode along the brink of a deep cedar
canyon. After a while we came to a coulie with
a small muddy pool at its mouth ; and round this
pool there was much fresh deer sign. The coulie
was but half a mile long, heading into and flanked
by the spurs of some steep, bare hills. Its bot-
tom, which was fifty yards or so across, was
choked by a dense growth of brush, chiefly thorny
bullberries, while the sides were formed by cut
banks twelve or fifteen feet high. My companion
rode up the middle, while I scrambled up one of
the banks, and, dismounting, led my horse along
its edge, that I might have a clear shot at what-
ever we roused. We went nearly to the head, and
then the cowboy reined up and shouted to me that
he "guessed there were no deer in the coulie."
Instantly there was a smashing in the young trees
midway between us, and I caught a glimpse of
a blacktail buck speeding round a shoulder of
the cut bank: and though I took a hurried shot
I missed. However, another buck promptly
jumped up from the same place; evidently, the
two had lain secure in their day-beds, shielded by
the dense cover, while the cowboy rode by them,
and had only risen when he halted and began to

40 The Wilderness Hunter

call to me across them. This second buck, a fine
fellow with big antlers not yet clear of velvet,
luckily ran up the opposite bank and I got a fair
shot at him as he galloped broadside to me along
the open hillside. When I fired he rolled over
with a broken back. As we came up he bleated
loudly, an unusual thing for a buck to do.

Now, these two bucks must have heard us com-
ing, but reckoned on our passing them by with-
out seeing them ; which we would have done had
they not been startled when the cowboy halted
and spoke. Later in the season they would prob-
ably not have let us approach them, but would
have run as soon as they knew of our presence.
Of course, however, even later in the season a
man may by chance stumble across a deer close
by. I remember one occasion when my ranch
partner, Robert Munro Ferguson, and I almost
corralled an unlucky deer in a small washout.

It was October, and our meat supply unexpect-
edly gave out ; on our ranch, as on most ranches,
an occasional meat famine of three or four days
intervenes between the periods of plenty. So
Ferguson and I started together to get venison;
and at the end of two days' hard work, leaving the
ranch by sunrise, riding to the hunting-grounds
and tramping steadily until dark, we succeeded.
The weather was stormy and there were continual
gusts of wind and of cold rain, sleet, or snow.

The Blacktail Deer 41

We hunted through a large tract of rough and
broken country, six or eight miles from the ranch.
As often happens in such wild weather, the deer
were wild too; they were watchful and were on
the move all the time. We saw a number, but
either they ran off before we could get a shot, or
if we did fire it was at such a distance or under
such unfavorable circumstances that we missed.
At last, as we were plodding drearily up a bare
valley, the sodden mud caking round our shoes,
we roused three deer from the mouth of a short
washout but a few paces from us. Two bounded
off; the third by mistake rushed into the wash-
out, where he found himself in a regular trap and
was promptly shot by my companion. We slung
the carcass on a pole and carried it down to where
we had left the horses ; and then we loped home-
wards, bending to the cold slanting rain.

Although in places where it is much persecuted
the blacktail is a shy and wary beast, the success-
ful pursuit of which taxes to the uttermost the
skill and energy of the hunter, yet, like the elk,
if little molested it often shows astonishing tame-
ness and even stupidity. In the Rockies I have
sometimes come on blacktail within a very short
distance, which would merely stare at me, then
trot off a few yards, turn and stare again, and
wait for several minutes before really taking alarm.
What is much more extraordinary, I have had the

42 The Wilderness Hunter

same thing happen to me in certain Httle hunted
locaHties in the neighborhood of my ranch, even
of recent years. In the fall of 1890, 1 was riding
down a canyon-coulie with my foreman, Sylvane
Ferris, and a young friend from Boston, when we
almost rode over a barren blacktail doe. She only
ran some fifty yards, round a corner of the coulie,
and then turned and stood until we ran forward
and killed her — for we were in need of fresh meat.
One October, a couple of years before this, my
cousin, West Roosevelt, and I took a. trip with
the wagon to a very wild and rugged country,
some twenty miles from the ranch. We found
that the deer had evidently been but little dis-
turbed. One day while scrambling down a steep,
brushy hill, leading my horse, I came close on' a
doe and fawn; they merely looked at me with
curiosity for some time, and then sauntered slowly
off, remaining within shot for at least five min-
utes. Fortunately, we had plenty of meat at the
time, and there was no necessity to harm the
graceful creatures. A few days later we came on
two bucks sunning themselves in the bottom of
a valley. My companion killed one. The other
was lying but a dozen rods off ; yet it never moved,
until several shots had been fired at the first. It
was directly under me, and in my anxiety to avoid
overshooting, to my horror I committed the op-
posite fault, and away went the buck.

The Blacktail Deer 43

Every now and then any one will make most
unaccountable misses. A few days after thus
losing the buck, I spent nearly twenty cartridges
in butchering an unfortunate yearling, and only
killed it at all because it became so bewildered by
the firing that it hardly tried to escape. I never
could tell why I used so many cartridges to such
little purpose. During the next fortnight I killed
seven deer without making a single miss, though
some of the shots were rather difficult.

CHAPTER III

THE WHITETAIL DEER; AND THE BLACKTAIL OF
THE COLUMBIA

THE whitetail deer is much the commonest
game animal of the United States, being
still found, though generally in greatly
diminished numbers, throughout most of the
Union. It is a shrewd, wary, knowing beast ; but
it owes its prolonged stay in the land chiefly to
the fact that it is an inveterate skulker, and fond
of the thickest cover. Accordingly, it usually has
to be killed by stealth and stratagem, and not by
fair, manly hunting; being quite easily slain in
any one of half a dozen unsportsmanlike ways.
In consequence, I care less for its chase than for
the chase of any other kind of American big game.
Yet in the few places where it dwells in open, hilly
forests, and can be killed by still-hunting as if it
were a blacktail — or, better still, where the nature
of the ground is such that it can be run down in
fair chase on horseback, either with greyhounds
or with a pack of trackhounds, it yields splendid
sport.

Killing a deer from a boat while the poor ani-

44

The Whitetail Deer 45

mal is swimming in the water, or on snow-shoes
as it flounders helplessly in the deep drifts, can
only be justified on the plea of hunger. This is
also true of lying in wait at a lick. Whoever in-
dulges in any of these methods save from neces-
sity, is a butcher, pure and simple, and has no
business in the company of true sportsmen.

Fire hunting may be placed in the same cate-
gory; yet it is possibly allowable under excep-
tional circumstances to indulge in a fire hunt, if
only for the sake of seeing the wilderness by torch-
light. My first attempt at big-game shooting,
when a boy, was ''jacking" for deer in the Adi-
rondacks, on a pond or small lake surrounded by
the grand northern forests of birch and beech,
pine, spruce, and fir. I killed a spike buck ; and
while I have never been willing to kill another in
this manner, I cannot say that I regret having
once had the experience. The ride over the
glassy, black water, the witchcraft of such silent
progress through the mystery of the night, cannot
but impress one. There is pleasure in the mere
buoyant gliding of the birch-bark canoe, with its
curved bow and stern; nothing else that floats
possesses such grace, such frail and delicate beauty
as this true craft of the wilderness, which is as
much a creature of the wild woods as the deer and
bear themselves. The light streaming from the
bark lantern in the bow cuts a glaring lane through

46 The Wilderness Hunter

the gloom ; in it all objects stand out like magic,
shining for a moment white and ghastly and then
vanishing into the impenetrable darkness; while
all the time the paddler in the stem makes not so
much as a ripple, and there is never a sound but
the occasional splash of a muskrat, or the moan-
ing uloo-oo — uloo-uloo of an owl from the deep
forests, and at last, perchance, the excitement of
a shot at a buck, standing at gaze, with luminous
eyeballs.

The most common method of killing the white-
tail is by hounding; that is, by driving it with
hounds past runways where hunters are stationed
— for all wild animals when on the move prefer
to follow certain definite routes. This is a legiti-
mate, but inferior, kind of sport.

However, even killing driven deer may be good
fun at certain times. Most of the whitetail we
kill round the ranch are obtained in this fashion.
On the Little Missouri — as throughout the plains
country generally — these deer cling to the big
wooded river bottoms, while the blacktail are
found in the broken country back from the river.
The tangled mass of cottonwoods, box-alders, and
thorny bullberry bushes which cover the bottoms
afford the deer a nearly secure shelter from the
still-hunter; and it is only by the aid of hounds
that they can be driven from their wooded fast-
nesses. They hold their own better than any

The Whitetail Deer 47

other game. The great herds of buffalo and the
bands of elk have vanished completely; the
swarms of antelope and blacktail have been wo-
fuUy thinned ; but the whitetail, which were never
found in such throngs as either buffalo or elk,
blacktail or antelope, have suffered far less from
the advent of the white hunters, ranchmen, and
settlers. They are, of course, not as plentiful as
formerly ; but some are still to be found in almost
all their old haunts. Where the river, winding
between rows of high buttes, passes my ranch-
house, there is a long succession of heavily -wooded
bottoms; and on all of these, even on the one
whereon the house itself stands, there are a good
many whitetail yet left.

When we take a day's regular hunt we usually
wander afar, either to the hills after blacktail or
to the open prairie after antelope. But if we are
short of meat, and yet have no time for a regular
hunt, being perhaps able to spare only a couple
of hours after the day's work is over, then all
hands turn out to drive a bottom for whitetail.
We usually have one or two trackhounds at the
ranch ; true southern deerhounds, black and tan,
with lop ears and hanging lips, their wrinkled faces
stamped with an expression of almost ludicrous
melancholy. They are not fast, and have none
of the alert look of the pied and spotted modem
foxhound; but their noses are very keen, their

48 The Wilderness Hunter

voices deep and mellow, and they are wonderfully
staunch on a trail.

All is bustle and laughter as we start on such a
hunt. The baying hounds bound about as the
rifles are taken down; the wiry ponies are roped
out of the corral, and each broad-hatted hunter
swings joyfully into the saddle. If the pony
bucks or " acts mean" the rider finds that his rifle
adds a new element of interest to the perform-
ance, which is, of course, hailed with loud delight
by all the men on quiet horses. Then we splash
off over the river, scramble across the faces of the
bluffs, or canter along the winding cattle paths,
through the woods, until we come to the bottom
we intend to hunt. Here a hunter is stationed at
each runway along which it is deemed likely that
the deer will pass; and one man, who has re-
mained on horseback, starts into the cover with
the hounds; occasionally this horseman himself,
skilled, as most cowboys are, in the use of the re-
volver, gets a chance to kill a deer. The deep
baying of the hounds speedily gives warning that
the game is afoot ; and the watching hunters, who
have already hid their horses carefully, look to
their rifles. Sometimes the deer comes far ahead
of the dogs, running very swiftly with neck
stretched straight out ; and if the cover is thick,
such an animal is hard to hit. At other times,
especially if the quarry is a young buck, it plays

The Whitetail Deer 49

along not very far ahead of its baying pursuers,
bounding and strutting with head up and white
flag flaunting. If struck hard, down goes the flag
at once, and the deer plunges into a staggering
run, while the hounds yell with eager ferocity as
they follow the bloody trail. Usually we do not
have to drive more than one or two bottoms be-
fore getting a deer, which is forthwith packed
behind one of the riders, as the distance is not
great, and home we come in triumph. Some-
times, however, we fail to find game, or the deer
take unguarded passes, or the shot is missed.
Occasionally I have killed deer on these hunts;
generally I have merely sat still a long while, lis-
tened to the hounds, and at last heard somebody
else shoot. In fact, such hunting, though good
enough fun if only tried rarely, would speedily
pall if followed at all regularly.

Personally, the chief excitement I have had in
connection therewith has arisen from some antic
of my horse; a half -broken bronco is apt to be-
come unnerved when a man with a gun tries to
climb on him in a hurry. On one hunt, in 1890,
I rode a wild animal named Whitefoot. He had
been a confirmed and very bad bucker three
years before, when I had him in my string on
the round-up ; but had grown quieter with years.
Nevertheless, I found he had some fire left ; for a
hasty vault into the saddle on my part was

50 The Wilderness Hunter

followed on his by some very resolute pitching. I
lost my rifle and hat, and my revolver and knife
were bucked out of my belt; but I kept my
seat all right, and finally got his head up and
mastered him without letting him throw himself
over backwards, a trick he sometimes practised.
Nevertheless, in the first jump, when I was taken
unawares, I strained myself across the loins, and
did not get entirely over it for six months.

To shoot running game with the rifle, it is al-
ways necessary to be a good and quick marksman ;
for it is never easy to kill an animal, when in rapid
motion, with a single bullet. If on a runway, a
man who is a fairly skilful rifleman has plenty of
time for a clear shot, on open ground, at com-
paratively short distance, say under eighty yards,
and if the deer is cantering he ought to hit; at
least, I generally do under such circumstances, by
remembering to hold well forward — in fact, just in
front of the deer's chest. But I do not always
kill, by any means ; quite often when I thought I
held far enough ahead, my bullet has gone into
the buck's hips or loins. However, one great
feature in the use of dogs is that they enable one
almost always to recover wounded game.

If the animal is running at full speed a long
distance off, the difficulty of hitting is, of course,
very much increased ; and if the country is open
the value of a repeating rifle is then felt. If the

The Whitetail Deer 51

game is bounding over logs or dodging through
underbrush, the difficuhy is again increased.
Moreover, the natural gait of the different kinds
of game must be taken into account. Of course,
the larger kinds, such as elk and moose, are the
easiest to hit; then comes the antelope, in spite
of its swiftness, and the sheep, because of the even-
ness of their running ; then the whitetail, with its
rolling gallop; and last and hardest of all, the
blacktail, because of its extraordinary stiff -legged
bounds.

Sometimes on a runway the difficulty is not that
the game is too far, but that it is too close ; for a
deer may actually almost jump on the hunter,
surprising him out of all accuracy of aim. Once
something of the sort happened to me.

Winter was just beginning. I had been off with
the ranch-wagon on a last round-up of the beef
steers ; and had suffered a good deal, as one always
does on these cold- weather round-ups, sleeping
out in the snow, wrapped up in blankets and tar-
paulin, with no tent and generally no fire. More-
over, I became so weary of the interminable
length of the nights, that I almost ceased to mind
the freezing misery of standing night-guard round
the restless cattle; while roping, saddling, and
mastering the rough horses each morning, with
numbed and stiffened limbs, though warming to
the blood, was harrowing to the temper.

52 The Wilderness Hunter

On my return to the ranch I found a strange
hunter staying there — a clean, square-built, hon-
est-looking little fellow, but evidently not a native
American. As a rule, nobody displays much curi-
osity about any one's else antecedents in the Far
West; but I happened to ask my foreman who
the newcomer was, — chiefly because the said new-
comer, evidently appreciating the warmth and
comfort of the clean, roomy, ranch-house, with
its roaring fires, books, and good fare, seemed in-
clined to make a permanent stay, according to the
custom of the country. My foreman, who had a
large way of looking at questions of foreign eth-
nology and geography, responded with indiffer-
ence: *'0h, he's a kind of a Dutchman; but he
hates the other Dutch, mortal. He's from an
island Germany took from France in the last
war!" This seemed puzzling; but it turned out
that the "island" in question was Alsace. Na-
tive Americans predominate among the dwellers
in and on the borders of the wilderness, and in the
wild country over which the great herds of the
cattlemen roam ; and they take the lead in every
way. The sons of the Germans, Irish, and other
European newcomers are usually quick to claim
to be "straight United States," and to disavow
all kinship with the fellow-countrymen of their
fathers. Once, while with a hunter bearing a
German name, we came by chance on a German

The Whitetail Deer 53

hunting party from one of the eastern cities. One
of them remarked to my companion that he must
be part German himself, to which he cheerfully
answered: "Well, my father was a Dutchman,
but my mother was a white woman ! I 'm pretty
white myself!" whereat the Germans glowered at
him gloomily.

As we were out of meat, the Alsatian and one
of the cowboys and I started down the river with
a wagon. The first day in camp it rained hard,
so that we could not hunt. Towards evening we
grew tired of doing nothing, and as the rain had
become a mere fine drizzle, we sallied out to drive
one of the bottoms for whitetail. The cowboy
and our one trackhound plunged into the young
Cottonwood, which grew thickly over the sandy
bottom; while the little hunter and I took our
stands on a cut bank, twenty feet high and half
a mile long, which hedged in the trees from be-
hind. Three or four game trails led up through
steep, narrow clefts in this bank ; and we tried to
watch these. Soon I saw a deer in an opening
below, headed towards one end of the bank,
round which another game trail led; and I ran
hard towards this end, where it turned into a
knife-like ridge of clay. About fifty yards from
the point there must have been some slight irreg-
ularities in the face of the bank, enough to give
the deer a foothold ; for as I ran along the animal

54 The Wilderness Hunter

suddenly bounced over the crest, so close that I
could have hit it with my right hand. As I tried
to pull up short and swing round, my feet slipped
from under me in the wet clay, and down I went ;
while the deer literally turned a terrified somer-
sault backwards. I flung myself to the edge and
missed a hurried shot as it raced back on its track.
Then, wheeling, I saw the little hunter running
towards me along the top of the cut bank, his
face on a broad grin. He leaped over one of the
narrow clefts, up which a game trail led; and
hardly was he across before the frightened deer
bolted up it, not three yards from his back. He
did not turn, in spite of my shouting and hand-
waving, and the frightened deer, in the last stage
of panic at finding itself again almost touching
one of its foes, sped off across the grassy slopes
like a quarter horse. When at last the hunter
did turn, it was too late ; and our long-range fusil-
lade proved harmless. During the next two days
I redeemed myself, killing four deer.

Coming back, our wagon broke down, no un-
usual incident in ranchland, where there is often
no road, while the strain is great in hauling
through quicksands, and up or across steep,
broken hills ; it rarely makes much difference be-
yond the temporary delay, for plainsmen and
mountainmen are very handy and self-helpful.
Besides, a mere breakdown sinks into nothing

The Whitetail Deer 55

compared to having the team play out ; which is,
of course, most apt to happen at the times when
it insures hardship and suffering, as in the middle
of a snowstorm, or when crossing a region with
no water. However, the reinsmen of the plains
must needs face many such accidents, not to speak
of runaways, or having the wagon pitchpole over
on to the team in dropping down too steep a hill-
side. Once, after a three days' rainstorm, some of
us tried to get the ranch -wagon along a trail which
led over the ridge of a gumbo or clay butte. The
sticky stuff clogged our shoes, the horses' hoofs,
and the wheels; and it was even more slippery
than it was sticky. Finally, we struck a sloping
shoulder ; with great struggling, pulling, pushing,
and shouting, we reached the middle of it, and
then, as one of my men remarked, ''the whole
darned outfit slid into the coulie."

These hunting trips after deer or antelope with
the wagon usually take four or five days. I al-
ways ride some tried hunting-horse; and the
wagon itself, when on such a hunt, is apt to lead
a chequered career, as half the time there is not
the vestige of a trail to follow. Moreover, we
often make a hunt when the good horses are on
the round-up, or otherwise employed, and we have
to get together a scrub team of cripples or else
of outlaws — vicious devils, only used from dire
need. The best teamster for such a hunt that

56 The Wilderness Hunter

we ever had on the ranch was a weather-beaten
old fellow, known as "Old Man Tompkins."
In the course of a long career as lumberman,
plains teamster, buffalo - hunter, and Indian
fighter, he had passed several years as a Rocky
Mountain stage-driver; and a stage-driver of the
Rockies is of necessity a man of such skill and
nerve that he fears no team and no country. No
matter how wild the unbroken horses. Old Tomp-
kins never asked help ; and he hated to drive less
than a four-in-hand. When he once had a grip
on the reins, he let no one hold the horses' heads.
All he wished was an open plain for the rush at
the beginning. The first plunge might take the
wheelers' forefeet over the crossbars of the
leaders, but he never stopped for that ; on went
the team, running, bounding, rearing, tumbling,
while the wagon leaped behind, until gradually
things straightened out of their own accord. I
soon found, however, that I could not allow him
to carry a rifle; for he was an inveterate game
butcher. In the presence of game the old fellow
became fairly wild with excitement, and forgot
the years and rheumatism which had crippled
him. Once, after a long and tiresome day's hunt,
we were walking home together ; he was carrying
his boots in his hands, bemoaning the fact that
his feet hurt him. Suddenly a whitetail jumped
up; down dropped Old Tompkins's boots, and

The White tail Deer 57

away he went like a college sprinter, entirely
heedless of stones and cactus. By some indis-
criminate firing at long range we dropped the deer ;
and as Old Tompkins cooled down he realized
that his bare feet had paid full penalty for his dash.
One of these wagon trips I remember because
I missed a fair running shot which I much de-
sired to hit, and afterwards hit a very much more
difficult shot about which I cared very little.
Ferguson and I, with Sylvane and one or two
others, had gone a day's journey down the river
for a hunt. We went along the bottoms, cross-
ing the stream every mile or so, with an occasional
struggle through mud or quicksand, or up the
steep, rotten banks. An old buffalo-hunter drove
the wagon, with a couple of shaggy, bandy-legged
ponies; the rest of us jogged along in front on
horseback, picking out a trail through the bot-
toms and choosing the best crossing-places. Some
of the bottoms were grassy pastures ; on others,
great, gnarled cotton woods, with shivered branches,
stood in clumps; yet others were choked with a
true forest growth. Late in the afternoon we
went into camp, choosing a spot where the cotton-
woods were young; their glossy leaves trembled
and rustled unceasingly. We speedily picketed
the horses, — changing them about as they ate
off the grass, — drew water, and hauled great logs
in front of where we had pitched the tent, while

58 The Wilderness Hunter

the wagon stood nearby. Each man laid out his
bed ; the food and kitchen kit were taken from
the wagon; supper was cooked and eaten; and
we then lay round the camp-fire, gazing into it, or
up at the brilliant stars, and listening to the wild,
mournful wailing of the coyotes. They were very
plentiful round this camp; before sunrise and
after sundown they called unceasingly.

Next day I took a long tramp and climb after
mountain sheep and missed a running shot at a
fine ram, about a hundred yards off; or, rather,
I hit him and followed his bloody trail a couple
of miles, but failed to find him; whereat I re-
turned to camp much cast down.

Early the following morning, Sylvane and I
started for another hunt, this time on horseback.
The air was crisp and pleasant ; the beams of the
just-risen sun struck sharply on the umber-col-
ored hills and white cliff walls guarding the river,
bringing into high relief their strangely carved and
channelled fronts. Below camp the river was
little but a succession of shallow pools strung
along the broad, sandy bed, which in springtime
was filled from bank to bank with foaming muddy
water. Two mallards sat in one of these pools;
and I hit one with the rifle, so nearly missing that
the ball scarcely ruffled a feather; yet in some
way the shock told, for the bird, after flying thirty
yards, dropped on the sand.

The Whitetail Deer 59

Then we left the river and our active ponies
scrambled up a small canyon-like break in the
bluffs. All day we rode among the hills; some-
times across rounded slopes, matted with short
buffalo grass; sometimes over barren buttes of
red or white clay, where only sage-brush and cac-
tus grew; or beside deep ravines, black with
stunted cedar ; or along beautiful winding coulies,
where the grass grew rankly, and the thickets of
ash and wild plum made brilliant splashes of red
and yellow and tender green. Yet we saw nothing.

As evening drew on, we rode riverwards; we
slid down the steep bluff walls, and loped across a
great bottom of sage-brush and tall grass, our
horses now and then leaping like cats over the
trunks of dead cottonwoods. As we came to the
brink of the cut bank which forms the hither
boundary of the river in freshet time, we suddenly
saw two deer, a doe and a well-grown fawn — of
course, long out of the spotted coat. They were
walking with heads down along the edge of a sand-
bar, near a pool, on the farther side of the stream
bed, over two hundred yards distant. They saw
us at once, and turning, galloped away with
flags aloft, the pictures of springing, vigorous
beauty. I jumped off my horse in an instant,
knelt, and covered the fawn. It was going
straight away from me, running very evenly, and
I drew a coarse sight at the tip of the white flag.

6o The Wilderness Hunter

As I pulled trigger down went the deer, the ball
having gone into the back of its head. The dis-
tance was a good three hundred yards ; and while,
of course, there was much more chance than skill
in the shot, I felt well pleased with it — though I
could not help a regret that while making such a
difficult shot at a mere whitetail, I should have
missed a much easier shot at a noble bighorn.
Not only I, but all the camp, had a practical in-
terest in my success; for we had no fresh meat,
and a fat whitetail fawn, killed in October, yields
the best of venison. So, after dressing the deer,
I slung the carcass behind my saddle, and we rode
swiftly back to camp through the dark ; and that
evening we feasted on the juicy roasted ribs.

The degree of tameness and unsuspiciousness
shown by whitetail deer depends, of course, upon
the amount of molestation to which they are ex-
posed. Their times for sleeping, feeding, and com-
ing to water, vary from the same cause. Where
they are little persecuted they feed long after sim-
rise and before sunset, and drink when the sun is
high in the heavens, sometimes even at midday;
they then show but little fear of man, and speed-
ily become indifferent to the presence of deserted
dwellings.

In the cattle country the ranch-houses are often
shut during the months of warm weather, when
the round-ups succeed one another without inter-

The Whitetail Deer 6i

mission, as the calves must be branded, the beeves
gathered and shipped, long trips made to collect
strayed animals, and the trail stock driven from
the breeding- to the fattening-grounds. At that
time all the menfolk may have to be away in the
white-topped wagons, working among the homed
herds, whether plodding along the trail, or wan-
dering to and fro on the range. Late one sum-
mer, when my own house had been thus closed
for many months, I rode thither with a friend to
pass a week. The place already wore the look of
having slipped away from the domain of man.
The wild forces, barely thrust back beyond the
threshhold of our habitation, were prompt to
spring across it to renewed possession the moment
we withdrew. The rank grass grew tall in the
yard and on the sodded roofs of the stable and
sheds ; the weather-beaten log walls of the house
itself were one in tint with the trunks of the
gnarled cotton woods by which it was shaded.
Evidently, the woodland creatures had come to
regard the silent, deserted buildings as mere out-
growths of the wilderness, no more to be feared
than the trees around them, or the gray, strangely-
shaped buttes behind.

Lines of delicate, heart-shaped footprints in the
muddy reaches of the half -dry river-bed showed
where the deer came to water ; and in the dusky
cattle trails among the ravines many round tracks

62 The Wilderness Hunter

betrayed the passing and repassing of timber
wolves, — once or twice in the late evening we lis-
tened to their savage and melancholy howling.
Cottontail rabbits burrowed under the verandah.
Within doors the bushy -tailed pack-rats had pos-
session, and at night they held a perfect witches'
sabbath in the garret and kitchen; while a little
white-footed mouse, having dragged half the stuf-
fing out of a mattress, had made thereof a big
fluffy nest, entirely filling the oven. '

Yet, in spite of the abundant sign of game, we
at first suffered under one of those spells of ill-
luck which at times befall all hunters, and for
several days we could kill nothing, though we
tried hard, being in need of fresh meat. The
moon was full — each evening, sitting on the ranch
verandah, or walking homeward, we watched it
rise over the line of bluffs beyond the river — and
the deer were feeding at night ; moreover, in such
hot weather they lie very close, move as little as
possible, and are most difficult to find. Twice we
lay out from dusk until dawn, in spite of the mos-
quitoes, but saw nothing ; and the chances we did
get we failed to profit by.

One morning, instead of trudging out to hunt,
I stayed at home, and sat in a rocking-chair on the
verandah reading, rocking, or just sitting still lis-
tening to the low rustling of the cottonwood
branches overhead, and gazing across the river.

The Columbian Blacktail Deer 63

Through the still, clear, hot air, the faces of the
bluffs shone dazzling white ; no shadow fell from
the cloudless sky on the grassy slopes, or on the
groves of timber ; only the far-away cooing of a
mourning dove broke the silence. Suddenly my
attention was arrested by a slight splashing in the
water; glancing up from my book I saw three
deer, which had come out of the thick fringe of
bushes and young trees across the river, and were
strolling along the sand-bars directly opposite me.
Slipping stealthily into the house, I picked up my
rifle and slipped back again. One of the deer was
standing motionless, broadside to me; it was a
long shot, two hundred and fifty yards, but I had
a rest against a pillar of the verandah. I held
true, and as the smoke cleared away the deer lay
struggling on the sands.

As the whitetail is the most common and widely
distributed of American game, so the Columbian
blacktail has the most sharply limited geographi-
cal range; for it is confined to the northwest
coast, where it is by far the most abundant deer.
In antlers it is indistinguishable from the common
blacktail of the Rockies and the great plains, and
it has the regular blacktail gait, a succession of
stiff -legged bounds on all four feet at once; but
its tail is more like a whitetail's in shape, though
black above. As regards methods of hunting, and

64 The Wilderness Hunter

the amount of sport yielded, it stands midway
between its two brethren. It Hves in a land of
magnificent timber, where the trees tower far into
the sky, the giants of their kind; and there are
few more attractive sports than still-hunting on
the mountains, among these forests of marvellous
beauty and grandeur. There are many lakes
among the mountains where it dwells, and as it
cares more for water than the ordinary blacktail,
it is comparatively easy for hounds to drive it into
some pond where it can be killed at leisure. It is
thus often killed by hounding.

The only one I ever killed was a fine young buck.
We had camped near a little pond, and as evening
fell I strolled off towards it and sat down. Just
after sunset the buck came out of the woods. For
some moments he hesitated and then walked for-
ward and stood by the edge of the water, about
sixty yards from me. We were out of meat, so
I held right behind his shoulder, and though he
went off, his bounds were short and weak, and he
fell before he reached the wood.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE CATTLE RANGES; THE PRONGHORN
ANTELOPE

EARLY one June, just after the close of
the regular spring round-up, a couple of
wagons, with a score of riders between
them, were sent to work some hitherto untouched
country, between the Little Missouri and the Yel-
lowstone. I was to go as the representative of
our own and of one or two neighboring brands;
but as the round-up had halted near my ranch
I determined to spend a day there and then to
join the wagons; — the appointed meeting-place
being a cluster of red scoria buttes, some forty
miles distant, where there was a spring of good
water.

Most of my day at the ranch was spent in slum-
ber; for I had been several weeks on the round-
up, where nobody ever gets quite enough sleep.
This is the only drawback to the work ; otherwise
it is pleasant and exciting, with just that slight
touch of danger necessary to give it zest, and with-
out the wearing fatigue of such labor as lumber-
ing or mining. But there is never enough sleep,
at least on the spring and midsummer round-ups.

65

66 The Wilderness Hunter

The men are in the saddle from dawn until dusk
at the time when the days are longest on these
great northern plains; and in addition there is
the regular night-guarding, and now and then a
furious storm or a stampede, when for twenty-
four hours at a stretch the riders only dismount
to change horses or snatch a mouthful of food.

I started in the bright sunrise, riding one horse
and driving loose before me eight others, one car-
rying my bedding. They travelled strung out in
single file. I kept them trotting and loping, for
loose horses are easiest to handle when driven at
some speed, and, moreover, the way was long.
My rifle was slung under my thigh ; the lariat was
looped on the saddle-horn.

At first our trail led through winding coulies
and sharp, grassy defiles ; the air was wonderfully
clear, the flowers were in bloom, the breath of the
wind in my face was odorous and sweet. The pat-
ter and beat of the unshod hoofs, rising in half-
rhythmic measure, frightened the scudding deer;
but the yellow-breasted meadow larks, perched on
the budding tops of the bushes, sang their rich,
full songs without heeding us as we went by.

When the sun was well on high and the heat
of the day had begun, we came to a dreary and
barren plain, broken by rows of low, clay buttes.
The ground in places was whitened by alkali;
elsewhere it was dull gray. Here there grew

On the Cattle Ranges 67

nothing save sparse tufts of coarse grass and cac-
tus and sprawling sage-brush. In the hot air all
things seen afar danced and wavered. As I rode
and gazed at the shimmering haze, the vast deso-
lation of the landscape bore on me; it seemed as
if the unseen and unknown powers of the wastes
were moving by and marshalling their silent
forces. No man save the wilderness dweller
knows the strong melancholy fascination of these
long rides through lonely lands.

At noon, that the horses might graze and drink
I halted where some box-alders grew by a pool in
the bed of a half -dry creek, and shifted my saddle
to a fresh beast. When we started again we came
out on the rolling prairie, where the green sea of
wind-rippled grass stretched limitless as far as
the eye could reach. Little striped gophers scut-
tled away, or stood perfectly straight at the
mouths of their burrows, looking like picket -pins.
Curlews clamored mournfully as they circled over-
head. Prairie -fowl swept off, clucking and call-
ing, or strutted about with their sharp tails erect.
Antelope were very plentiful, running like race-
horses across the level, or uttering their queer,
barking grunt as they stood at gaze, the white
hairs on their rumps all on end, their neck-bands
of broken brown and white vivid in the sunlight.
They were found singly or in small straggling par-
ties ; the master bucks had not yet begun to drive

68 The Wilderness Hunter

out the younger and weaker ones as later in the
season, when each would gather into a herd as
many does as his jealous strength could guard
from rivals. The nursing does whose kids had
come early were often found with the bands ; the
others kept apart. The kids were very conspicu-
ous figures on the prairies, across which they
scudded like jack-rabbits, showing nearly as much
speed and alertness as their parents; only the
very young sought safety by lying flat to escape
notice.

The horses cantered and trotted steadily over
the mat of buffalo grass, steering for the group of
low scoria mounds which was my goal. In mid-
afternoon I reached it. The two wagons were
drawn up near the spring; under them lay the
night -wranglers, asleep; nearby, the teamster-
cooks were busy about the evening meal. A
little way off, the two day- wranglers were watch-
ing the horse-herd; into which I speedily turned
my own animals. The riders had already driven
in the bunches of cattle, and were engaged in
branding the calves, and turning loose the animals
that were not needed, while the remainder were
kept, forming the nucleus of the herd which was
to accompany the wagon.

As soon as the work was over the men rode to
the wagons : sinewy fellows, with tattered, broad-
brimmed hats and clanking spurs, some wearing

On the Cattle Ranges 69

leather shaps or leggings, others having their
trousers tucked into their high-heeled top-boots,
all with their flannel shirts and loose neckerchiefs
dusty and sweaty. A few were indulging in
rough, good-natured horse-play, to an accompani-
ment of yelling mirth ; most were grave and taci-
turn, greeting me with a silent nod or a "How!
friend." A very talkative man, unless the ac-
knowledged wit of the party, according to the
somewhat florid frontier notion of wit, is always
looked on with disfavor in a cow-camp. After
supper, eaten in silent haste, we gathered round
the embers of the small fires, and the conversa-
tion glanced fitfully over the threadbare subjects
common to all such camps: the antics of some
particularly vicious bucking bronco, how the
different brands of cattle were showing up, the
smallness of the calf drop, the respective merits
of rawhide lariats and grass ropes, and bits of
rather startling and violent news concerning the
fates of certain neighbors. Then one by one we
began to turn in under our blankets.

Our wagon was to furnish the night -guards for
the cattle; and each of us had his gentlest horse
tied ready to hand. The night-guards went on
duty two at a time for two-hour watches. By
good luck, my watch came last. My comrade was
a happy-go-lucky young Texan, who for some
inscrutable reason was known as " Latigo Strap" ;

70 The Wilderness Hunter

he had just come from the south with a big drove
of trail cattle.

A few minutes before two, one of the guards who
had gone on duty at midnight rode into camp
and awakened us by shaking our shoulders. Fum-
bling in the dark, I speedily saddled my horse;
Latigo had left his saddled, and he started ahead
of me. One of the annoyances of night-guarding,
at least in thick weather, is the occasional diffi-
culty of finding the herd after leaving camp, or in
returning to camp after the watch is over; there
are few things more exasperating than to be help-
lessly wandering about in the dark under such
circumstances. However, on this occasion there
was no such trouble; for it was a brilliant star-
light night and the herd had been bedded down
by a sugar-loaf butte which made a good land-
mark. As we reached the spot we could make out
the loom of the cattle lying close together on the
level plain; and then the dim figure of a horse-
man rose vaguely from the darkness and moved by
in silence ; it was the other of the two midnight
guards on his way back to his broken slumber.

At once we began to ride slowly round the
cattle in opposite directions. We were silent, for
the night was clear, and the herd quiet; in wild
weather, when the cattle are restless, the cow-
boys never cease calling and singing as they circle
them, for the sounds seem to quiet the beasts.

On the Cattle Ranges 71

For over an hour we steadily paced the endless
round, saying nothing, with our greatcoats but-
toned, for the air is chill towards morning on
the noi"thern plains, even in summer. Then faint
streaks of gray appeared in the east. Latigo
Strap began to call merrily to the cattle. A coy-
ote came sneaking over the butte nearby and
halted to yell and wail ; afterwards he crossed the
coulie and from the hillside opposite again shrieked
in dismal crescendo. The dawn brightened rap-
idly ; the little skylarks of the plains began to sing,
soaring far overhead, while it was still much too
dark to see them. Their song is not powerful,
but it is so clear and fresh and long-continued
that it always appeals to one very strongly ; es-
pecially because it is most often heard in the
rose-tinted air of the glorious mornings, while
the listener sits in the saddle, looking across the
endless sweep of the prairies.

As it grew lighter the cattle became restless,
rising and stretching themselves, while we con-
tinued to ride round them.

" Then the bronc' began to pitch
And I began to ride;
He bucked me off a cut bank,
Hell! I nearly died!"

sang Latigo from the other side of the herd, A
yell from the wagons told that the cook was sum-
moning the sleeping cow-punchers to breakfast;

72 The Wilderness Hunter

we were soon able to distinguish their figures as
they rolled out of their bedding, wrapped and
corded it into bundles, and huddled sullenly round
the little fires. The horse-wranglers were driving
in the saddle bands. All the cattle got on their
feet and started feeding. In a few minutes the
hasty breakfast at the wagons had evidently been
despatched, for we could see the men forming rope
corrals into which the ponies were driven; then
each man saddled, bridled, and mounted his
horse, two or three of the half -broken beasts
bucking, rearing, and plunging frantically in the
vain effort to unseat their riders.

The two men who were first in the saddle re-
lieved Latigo and myself, and we immediately
galloped to camp, shifted our saddles to fresh ani-
mals, gulped down a cup or two of hot coffee, and
some pork, beans, and bread, and rode to the spot
where the others were gathered, lolling loosely in
their saddles and waiting for the round-up boss
to assign them their tasks. We were the last, and
as soon as we arrived the boss divided all into two
parties for the morning work, or "circle riding,"
whereby the cattle were to be gathered for the
round-up proper. Then, as the others started, he
turned to me and remarked: "We've got enough
hands to drive this open country without you;
but we're out of meat, and I don't want to kill a
beef for such a small outfit ; can't you shoot some

The Pronghorn Antelope 73

antelope this morning? We'll pitch camp by the
big, blasted cottonwood at the foot of the ash
coulies over yonder, below the breaks of Dry
Creek."

Of course I gladly assented, and was speedily
riding alone across the grassy slopes. There was
no lack of the game I was after, for from every
rise of ground I could see antelope scattered
across the prairie — singly, in couples, or in bands.
But their very numbers, joined to the lack of
cover on such an open, flattish country, proved a
bar to success; while I was stalking one band
another was sure to see me and begin running,
whereat the first would likewise start; I missed
one or two very long shots, and noon found me
still without game.

However, I was then lucky enough to see a
band of a dozen feeding to windward of a small
butte, and by galloping in a long circle I got
within a quarter of a mile of them before having
to dismount. The stalk itself was almost too easy,
for I simply walked to the butte, climbed carefully
up a slope where the soil was firm and peered over
the top, to see the herd-^a little one — a hundred
yards off. They saw me at once and ran, but I
held well ahead of a fine young prongbuck, and
rolled him over like a rabbit, with both shoulders
broken. In a few minutes I was riding onwards
once more, with the buck lashed behind my saddle.

74 The Wilderness Hunter

The next one I got, a couple of hours later,
offered a much more puzzling stalk. He was a
big fellow, in company with four does or small
bucks. All five were lying in the middle of a
slight basin, at the head of a gentle valley. At
first sight it seemed impossible to get near them,
for there was not so much cover as a sage-brush,
and the smooth, shallow basin in which they lay
was over a thousand yards across, while they were
looking directly down the valley. However, it is
curious how hard it is to tell, even from nearby,
whether a stalk can or cannot be made ; the diffi-
culty being to estimate the exact amount of shel-
ter yielded by little inequalities of ground. In
this instance a small, shallow watercourse, entirely
dry, ran along the valley, and after much study
I decided to try to crawl up it, although the big,
bulging, telescopic eyes of the prongbuck — which
have much keener sight than deer or any other
game — would in such case be pointed directly my
way.

Having made up my mind, I backed cautiously
down from the coign of vantage whence I had first
seen the game, and ran about a mile to the mouth
of a washout which formed the continuation of
the watercourse in question. Protected by the
high clay banks of this washout, I was able to
walk upright until within half a mile of the prong-
bucks ; then my progress became very tedious and

The Pronghorn Antelope 75

toilsome, as I had to work my way up the water-
course fiat on my stomach, dragging the rifle be-
side me. At last I reached a spot beyond which
not even a snake could crawl unnoticed. In front
was a low bank, a couple of feet high, crested with
tufts of coarse grass. Raising my head very cau-
tiously, I peered through these aiid saw the prong-
horn about a hundred and fifty yards distant.
At the same time I found that I had crawled to
the edge of a village of prairie-dogs, which had
already made me aware of their presence by their
shrill yelping. They saw me at once, and all
those away from their homes scuttled towards
them and dived down the burrows, or sat on the
mounds at the entrances, scolding convulsively
and jerking their fat little bodies and short tails.
This commotion at once attracted the attention of
the antelope. They rose forthwith, and imme-
diately caught a glimpse of the black muzzle of
the rifle which I was gently pushing through the
grass tufts. The fatal curiosity which so often in
this species offsets wariness and sharp sight,
proved my friend; evidently the antelope could
not quite make me out and wished to know what
I was. They moved nervously to and fro, strik-
ing the earth with their fore hoofs and now and
then uttering a sudden bleat. At last the big
buck stood still, broadside to me, and I fired. He
went off with the others, but lagged behind as

7^ The Wilderness Hunter

they passed over the hill crest, and when I reached
it I saw him standing, not very far off, with his
head down. Then he walked backwards a few
steps, fell over on his side, and died.

As he was a big buck, I slung him across the
saddle and started for camp afoot, leading the
horse. However^ ray hunt was not over, for while
still a mile from the wagons, going down a coulie
of Dry Creek, a yearling prongbuck walked over
the divide to my right and stood still until I
sent a bullet into its chest ; so that I made my
appearance in camp with three antelope.

I spoke above of the sweet singing of the west-
ern meadow lark and plains skylark; neither of
them kin to the true skylark, by the way, one
being a cousin of the grakles and hangbirds, and
the other a kind of pipit. To me both of these
birds are among the most attractive singers to
which I have ever listened; but with all bird
music much must be allowed for the surroundings
and much for the mood, and the keenness of sense,
of the listener. The lilt of the little plains sky-
lark is neither very powerful nor very melodious ;
but it is sweet, pure, long-sustained, with a ring
of courage befitting a song uttered in highest
air.

The meadow lark is a singer of a higher order,
deserving to rank with the best. Its song has
length, variety, power, and rich melody; and

The Pronghorn Antelope "j^

there is in it sometimes a cadence of wild sadness,
inexpressibly touching. Yet I cannot say that
either song would appeal to others as it appeals
to me; for to me it comes forever laden with a
hundred memories and associations; with the
sight of dim hills reddening in the dawn, with the
breath of cool morning winds blowing across lonely
plains, with the scent of flowers on the sunlit
prairie, with the motion of fiery horses, with all
the strong thrill of eager and buoyant life. I
doubt if any man can judge dispassionately the
bird songs of his own country; he cannot dis-
associate them from the sights and sounds of the
land that is so dear to him.

This is not a feeling to regret, but it must be
taken into account in accepting any estimate of
bird music — even in considering the reputation of
the European skylark and nightingale. To both
of these birds I have often listened in their own
homes ; always with pleasure and admiration, but
always with a growing belief that, relatively to
some other birds, they were ranked too high.
They are pre-eminently birds with literary asso-
ciations ; most people take their opinions of them
at second hand, from the poets.

No one can help liking the lark; it is such a
brave, honest, cheery bird, and, moreover, its
song is uttered in the air, and is very long sus-
tained. But it is by no means a musician of the

78 The Wilderness Hunter

first rank. The nightingale is a performer of a
very different and far higher order ; yet, though it
is indeed a notable and admirable singer, it is an
exaggeration to call it unequalled. In melody,
and, above all, in that finer, higher melody where
the chords vibrate with the touch of eternal sor-
row, it cannot rank with such singers as the wood
thrush and hermit thrush. The serene, ethereal,
beauty of the hermit's song, rising and falling
through the still evening, under the archways of
hoary mountain forests that have endured from
time everlasting; the golden, leisurely chiming of
the wood thrush, sounding on June afternoons,
stanza by stanza, through sun-flecked groves of
tall hickories, oaks, and chestnuts — with these
there is nothing in the nightingale's song to com-
pare. But in volume and continuity, in tuneful,
voluble, rapid outpouring and ardor, above all in
skilful and intricate variation of theme, its song
far surpasses that of either of the thrushes. In
all these respects, it is more just to compare it with
the mocking-bird's, which, as a rule, likewise falls
short precisely on those points where the songs of
the two thrushes excel.

The mocking-bird is a singer that has suffered
much in reputation from its powers of mimicry.
On ordinary occasions, and especially in the day-
time, it insists on playing the harlequin. But
when free in its own favorite haunts at night in

The Pronghorn Antelope 79

the love season, it has a song, or rather songs,
which are not only purely original, but are also
more beautiful than any other bird music what-
soever. Once I listened to a mocking-bird sing-
ing the livelong spring night, under the full moon,
in a magnolia tree ; and I do not think I shall ever
forget its song.

It was on the plantation of Major Campbell
Brown, near Nashville, in the beautiful, fertile
mid-Tennessee country. The mocking-birds were
prime favorites on the place ; and were given full
scope for the development, not only of their bold
friendliness towards mankind, but also of that
marked individuality and originality of character
in which they so far surpass every other bird as to
become the most interesting of all feathered folk.
One of the mockers, which lived in the hedge bor-
dering the garden, was constantly engaged in an
amusing feud with an honest old setter dog, the
point of attack being the tip of the dog's tail.
For some reason the bird seemed to regard any
hoisting of the setter's tail as a challenge and in-
sult. It would flutter near the dog as he walked ;
the old setter would become interested in some-
thing and raise his tail. The bird would promptly
fly at it and peck the tip ; whereupon down went
the tail, until in a couple of minutes the old fellow
would forget himself, and the scene would be
repeated. The dog usually bore the assaults with

8o The Wilderness Hunter

comic resignation ; and the mocker easily avoided
any momentary outburst of clumsy resentment.

On the evening in question the moon was full.
My host kindly assigned me a room of which the
windows opened on a great magnolia tree, where,
I was told, a mocking-bird sang every night and
all night long. I went to my room about ten.
The moonlight was shining in through the open
window, and the mocking-bird was already in the
magnolia. The great tree was bathed in a flood
of shining silver ; I could see each twig and mark
every action of the singer, who was pouring forth
such a rapture of ringing melody as I have never
listened to before or since. Sometimes he would
perch motionless for many minutes, his body quiv-
ering and thrilling with the outpour of music.
Then he would drop softly from twig to twig,
until the lowest limb was reached, when he would
rise, fluttering and leaping through the branches,
his song never ceasing for an instant, until he
reached the summit of the tree and launched into
the warm, scent -laden air, floating in spirals, with
outspread wings, until, as if spent, he sank gently
back into the tree and down through the branches,
while his song rose into an ecstasy of ardor and
passion. His voice rang like a clarionet, in rich,
full tones, and his execution covered the widest
possible compass; theme followed theme, a tor-
rent of music, a swelling tide of harmony, in which

The Pronghorn Antelope 8i

scarcely any two bars were alike. I stayed till
midnight listening to him ; he was singing when I
went to sleep; he was still singing when I woke
a couple of hours later ; he sang through the live-
long night.

There are many singers beside the meadow lark
and little skylark in the plains country — that
brown and desolate land, once the home of the
thronging buffalo, still haunted by the bands of
the prongbuck, and roamed over in ever-increas-
ing numbers by the branded herds of the ranch-
man. In the brush of the river bottoms there
are the thrasher and song sparrow ; on the grassy
uplands the lark finch, vesper sparrow, and lark
bunting ; and in the rough canyons the rock wren,
with its ringing melody.

Yet in certain moods a man cares less for even
the loveliest bird songs than for the wilder,
harsher, stronger sounds of the wilderness; the
guttural booming and clucking of the prairie-fowl
and the great sage-fowl in spring ; the honking of
gangs of wild geese, as they fly in rapid wedges;
the bark of an eagle, wheeling in the shadow of
storm-scarred cliffs; or the far-off clanging of
many sandhill cranes, soaring high overhead in
circles which cross and recross at an incredible
altitude. Wilder yet, and stranger, are the cries
of the great four-footed beasts; the rhythmic
pealing of a bull-elk's challenge; and that most

6

82 The Wilderness Hunter

sinister and mournful sound, ever fraught with
foreboding of murder and rapine, the long-drawn
baying of the gray wolf.

Indeed, save to the trained ear, most mere
bird songs are not very noticeable. The ordinary
wilderness dweller, whether hunter or cowboy,
scarcely heeds them ; and, in fact, knows but little
of the smaller birds. If a bird has some conspicu-
ous peculiarity of look or habit he will notice its
existence ; but not otherwise. He knows a good
deal about magpies, whisky-jacks, or water-
ousels; but nothing whatever concerning the
thrushes, finches, and warblers.

It is the same with mammals. The prairie-dogs
he cannot help noticing. With the big pack-rats
also he is well acquainted; for they are hand-
some, with soft gray fur, large eyes, and bushy
tails; and, moreover, no one can avoid remark-
ing their extraordinary habit of carrying to their
burrows everything bright, useless, and portable,
from an empty cartridge case to a skinning-knife.
But he knows nothing of mice, shrews, pocket-
gophers, or weasels; and but little even of some
larger mammals with very marked characteris-
tics. Thus I have met but one or two plainsmen
who knew anything of the curious plains ferret,
that rather rare weasel-like animal, which plays
the same part on the plains that the mink does
by the edges of all our streams and brooks, and

The Pronghorn Antelope S^

the tree-loving sable in the cold northern forests.
The ferret makes its home in burrows, and by
preference goes abroad at dawn and dusk, but
sometimes even at midday. It is as blood-
thirsty as the mink itself, and its life is one long
ramble for prey — gophers, prairie-dogs, sage-rab-
bits, jack-rabbits, snakes, and every kind of
ground bird furnishing its food. I have known
one to fairly depopulate a prairie-dog town, it
being the arch foe of these little rodents, because
of its insatiable blood lust and its capacity to fol-
low them into their burrows. Once I found the
bloody body and broken eggs of a poor prairie-
hen which a ferret had evidently surprised on her
nest. Another time one of my men was eye-wit-
ness to a more remarkable instance of the little
animal's bloodthirsty ferocity. He was riding
the range, and, being attracted by a slight com-
motion in a clump of grass, he turned his horse
thither to look, and to his astonishment found an
antelope fawn at the last gasp, but still feebly
struggling in the grasp of a ferret, which had
throttled it and was sucking its blood with hideous
greediness. He avenged the murdered innocent
by a dexterous blow with the knotted end of his
lariat.

That mighty bird of rapine, the war-eagle,
which on the great plains and among the Rockies
supplants the bald-headed eagle of better- watered

84 The Wilderness Hunter

regions, is another dangerous foe of the young
antelope. It is even said that under exceptional
circumstances eagles will assail a full-grown prong-
horn; and a neighboring ranchman informs me
that he was once an eye-witness to such an attack.
It was a bleak day in the late winter, and he was
riding home across a wide, dreary plateau, when
he saw two eagles worrying and pouncing on a
prongbuck — seemingly a yearling. It made a
gallant fight. The eagles hovered over it with
spread wings, now and then swooping down, their
talons out-thrust, to strike at the head, or to try
to settle on the loins. The antelope reared and
struck with hoofs and horns like a goat; but its
strength was failing rapidly, and doubtless it
would have succumbed in the end had not the
approach of the ranchman driven off the marau-
ders.

I have likewise heard stories of eagles attack-
ing badgers, foxes, bob-cats, and coyotes; but I
am inclined to think all such cases exceptional.
I have never myself seen an eagle assail anything
bigger than a fawn, lamb, kid, or jack-rabbit. It
also swoops at geese, sage-fowl, and prairie-fowl.
On one occasion, while riding over the range, I
witnessed an attack on a jack-rabbit. The eagle
was soaring overhead, and espied the jack while
the latter was crouched motionless. Instantly the
great bird rushed down through the humming air,

The Pronghorn Antelope 85

with closed wings ; checked itself when some forty
yards above the jack, hovered for a moment, and
again fell like a bolt. Away went long-ears, run-
ning as only a frightened jack can ; and after him
the eagle, not with the arrowy rush of its descent
from high air, but with eager, hurried flapping.
In a short time it had nearly overtaken the fugi-
tive, when the latter dodged sharply to one side,
and the eagle overshot it precisely as a grey-
hound would have done, stopping itself by a pow-
erful, setting motion of the great pinions. Twice
this manoeuvre was repeated; then the eagle
made a quick rush, caught, and overthrew the
quarry before it could turn, and in another mo-
ment was sitting triumphant on the quivering
body, the crooked talons driven deep into the
soft, furry sides.

Once, while hunting mountain sheep in the Bad
Lands, I killed an eagle on the wing with the rifle.
I was walking beneath a cliff of gray clay, when
the eagle sailed into view over the crest. As soon
as he saw me he threw his wings aback, and for a
moment before wheeling poised motionless, offer-
ing a nearly stationary target ; so that my bullet
grazed his shoulder, and down he came through
the air, tumbling over and over. As he struck the
ground he threw himself on his back, and fought
against his death with the undaunted courage
proper to his brave and cruel nature.

86 The Wilderness Hunter

Indians greatly prize the feathers of this eagle.
With them they make their striking and beautiful
war bonnets, and bedeck the manes and tails of
their spirited war ponies. Every year the Gros-
ventres and Mandans from the Big Missouri come
to the neighborhood of my ranch to hunt. Though
not good marksmen, they kill many whitetail deer,
driving the bottoms for them in bands, on horse-
back; and they catch many eagles. Sometimes
they take these alive by exposing a bait near
which a hole is dug, where one of them lies hidden
for days, with Indian patience, until an eagle
lights on the bait and is noosed.

Even eagles are far less dangerous enemies to
antelope than are wolves and coyotes. These
beasts are always prowling round the bands to
snap up the sick or unwary; and in spring they
revel in carnage of the kids and fawns. They are
not swift enough to overtake the grown animals
by sheer speed ; but they are superior in endurance,
and, especially in winter, often run them down in
fair chase. A prongbuck is a plucky little beast,
and when cornered it often makes a gallant,
though not a very effectual, fight.

CHAPTER V

HUNTING THE PRONGBUCK ; FROST, FIRE,
AND THIRST

AS with all other American game, man is a
worse foe to the pronghorns than all
their brute enemies combined. They
hold their own much better than the bigger game ;
on the whole even better than the blacktail ; but
their numbers have been wofully thinned, and in
many places they have been completely exter-
minated. The most exciting method of chasing
them is on horseback with greyhounds ; but they
are usually killed with the rifle. Owing to the
open nature of the ground they frequent, the shots
must generally be taken at long range; hence
this kind of hunting is pre-eminently that need-
ing judgment of distance and skill in the use of
the long-range rifle at stationary objects. On the
other hand the antelope are easily seen, making
no effort to escape observation, as deer do, and
are so curious that in very wild districts to this
day they can sometimes be tolled within rifle-
shot by the judicious waving of a red flag. In
consequence, a good many very long, but tempt-
ing, shots can be obtained. More cartridges are

87

88 The Wilderness Hunter

used, relatively to the amount of game killed, on
antelope than in any other hunting.

Often I have killed prongbucks while riding
between the outlying line camps, which are usu-
ally stationed a dozen miles or so back from the
river, where the Bad Lands melt into the prairie.
In continually trying long shots, of course one
occasionally makes a remarkable hit. Once, I re-
member, while riding down a broad, shallow cou-
lie with two of my cow-hands, — Sea well and Dow,
both keen hunters and among the staunchest
friends I have ever had, — rousing a band of ante-
lope which stood irresolute at about a hundred
yards until I killed one. Then they dashed off,
and I missed one shot, but with my next, to my
own utter astonishment, killed the last of the
band, a big buck, just as he topped a rise four
hundred yards away. To offset such shots I have
occasionally made an unaccountable miss. Once
I was hunting with the same two men, on a rainy
day, when we came on a bunch of antelope some
seventy yards off, lying down on the side of a
coulie, to escape the storm. They huddled to-
gether a moment to gaze, and, with stiffened
fingers I took a shot, my yellow oilskin slicker
flapping around me in the wind and rain. Down
went one buck, and away went the others. One
of my men walked up to the fallen beast, bent
over it, and then asked: ''Where did you aim?"

Hunting the Prongbuck 89

Not reassured by the question, I answered doubt-
fully: "Behind the shoulder." Whereat he re-
marked drily: "Well, you hit it in the eye!"
I never did know whether I killed the antelope I
aimed at or another. Yet that same day I killed
three more bucks at decidedly long shots ; at the
time we lacked meat at the ranch, and were out
to make a good killing.

Besides their brute and human foes, the prong-
horn must also fear the elements, and especially
the snows of winter. On the northern plains the
cold weather is of polar severity, and turns the
green, grassy prairies of midsummer into iron-
bound wastes. The blizzards whirl and sweep
across them with a shrieking fury which few liv-
ing things may face. The snow is like fine ice-
dust, and the white waves glide across the grass
with a stealthy, crawling motion which has in it
something sinister and cruel. Accordingly, as the
bright fall weather passes, and the dreary winter
draws nigh, when the days shorten, and the
nights seem interminable, and gray storms lower
above the gray horizon, the antelope gather in
bands and seek sheltered places, where they may
abide through the winter-time of famine and cold
and deep snow. Some of these bands travel for
many hundred miles, going and returning over
the same routes, swimming rivers, crossing prai-
ries, and threading their way through steep defiles.

90 The Wilderness Hunter

Such bands make their winter home in the Black
Hills, or similar mountainous regions, where the
shelter and feed are good, and where, in conse-
quence, antelope have wintered in countless
thousands for untold generations. Other bands
do not travel for any very great distance, but
seek some sheltered grassy table-land in the
Bad Lands, or some well-shielded valley, where
their instinct and experience teach them that the
snow does not lie deep in winter. Once having
chosen such a place they stand much persecution
before leaving it.

One December, an old hunter whom I knew
told me that such a band was wintering a few
miles from a camp where two line-riders of the
W Bar brand were stationed ; and I made up my
mind to ride thither and kill a couple. The line
camp was twenty miles from my ranch; the
shack in which the old hunter lived was midway
between, and I had to stop there to find out the
exact lay of the land.

At dawn, before our early breakfast, I saddled
a tough, shaggy sorrel horse; hastening indoors
as soon as the job was over to warm my numbed
fingers. After breakfast I started, muffled in my
wolfskin coat, with beaver-fur cap, gloves, and
shaps, and great felt overshoes. The windless
air was bitter cold, the thermometer showing well
below zero. Snow lay on the ground, leaving

Hunting the Prongbuck 91

bare patches here and there, but drifted deep in
the hollows. Under the steel-blue heavens the
atmosphere had a peculiar glint, as if filled with
myriads of tiny crystals. As I crossed the frozen
river, immediately in front of the ranch-house,
the strangely carved tops of the bluffs were red-
dening palely in the winter sunrise. Prairie-fowl
were perched in the bare cottonwoods along the
river brink, showing large in the leafless branches ;
they called and clucked to one another.

Where the ground was level and the snow not
too deep I loped, and before noon I reached the
sheltered coulie where, with long poles and bark,
the hunter had built his tepee — wigwam, as eastern
woodsmen would have called it. It stood in a
loose grove of elms and box-alders; from the
branches of the nearest trees hung saddles of
frozen venison. The smoke rising from the fun-
nel-shaped top of the tepee showed that there was
more fire than usual within; it is easy to keep a
good tepee warm, though it is so smoky that no
one therein can stand upright. As I drew rein the
skin door was pushed aside, and the hard old face
and dried, battered body of the hunter appeared.
He greeted me with a surly nod, and a brief re-
quest to ''light and hev somethin' to eat" — the
invariable proffer of hospitality on the plains.
He wore a greasy buckskin shirt or tunic, and
an odd cap of badger-skin, from beneath which

92 The Wilderness Hunter

strayed his tangled hair; age, rheumatism, and
the many accidents and incredible fatigue, hard-
ship, and exposure of his past life had crippled
him, yet he still possessed great power of endur-
ance, and in his seamed, weather-scarred face his
eyes burned fierce and piercing as a hawk's. Ever
since early manhood he had wandered over the
plains, hunting and trapping ; he had waged sav-
age private war against half the Indian tribes of
the north; and he had wedded wives in each of
the tribes of the other half. A few years before
this time the great buffalo herds had vanished,
and the once swarming beaver had shared the
same fate; the innumerable horses and horned
stock of the cattlemen, and the daring rough
riders of the ranches, had supplanted alike the
game and the red and white wanderers who had
followed it with such fierce rivalry. When the
change took place the old fellow, vv^ith failing
bodily powers, found his life-work over. He had
little taste for the career of the desperado, horse-
thief, highwayman, and man-killer, which not a
few of the old buffalo-hunters adopted when their
legitimate occupation was gone; he scorned still
more the life of vicious and idle semi-criminality
led by others of his former companions who were
of weaker mould. Yet he could not do regular
work. His existence had been one of excite-
ment, adventure, and restless roaming, when it

Hunting the Prongbuck 93

was not passed in lazy ease ; his times of toil and
peril varied by fits of brutal revelry. He had no
kin, no ties of any kind. He would accept no
help, for his wants were very few, and he was
utterly self-reliant. He got meat, clothing, and
bedding from the antelope and deer he killed ; the
spare hides and venison he bartered for what little
else he needed. So he built him his tepee in one
of the most secluded parts of the Bad Lands,
where he led the life of a solitary hunter, awaiting
in grim loneliness the death which he knew to be
near at hand.

I unsaddled and picketed my horse, and fol-
lowed the old hunter into his smoky tepee; sat
down on the pile of worn buffalo-robes which
formed his bedding, and waited in silence while
he fried some deer meat and boiled some coffee —
he was out of flour. As I ate, he gradually un-
bent and talked quite freely, and before I left he
told me exactly where to find the band, which he
assured me was located for the winter, and would
not leave unless much harried.

After a couple of hours' rest I again started,
and pushed out to the end of the Bad Lands.
Here, as there had been no wind, I knew I should
find in the snow the tracks of one of the riders
from the line camp, whose beat lay along the edge
of the prairie for some eight miles, until it met
the beat of a rider from the line camp next above.

94 The Wilderness Hunter

As nightfall came on it grew even colder; long
icicles hung from the lips of my horse ; and I shiv-
ered slightly in my fur coat. I had reckoned the
distance ill, and it was dusk when I struck the
trail ; but my horse at once turned along it of his
own accord and began to lope. Half an hour
later I saw through the dark what looked like a
spark on the side of a hill. Toward this my horse
turned; and in another moment a whinnying
from in front showed I was near the camp. The
light was shining through a small window, the
camp itself being a dugout with a log roof and
front — a kind of frontier building, always warm
in winter. After turning my horse into the rough
log stable with the horses of the two cowboys, I
joined the latter at supper inside the dugout;
being received, of course, with hearty cordiality.
After the intense cold outside the warmth within
was almost oppressive, for the fire was roaring in
the big stone fireplace. The bunks were broad;
my two friends turned into one, and I was given
the other, with plenty of bedding; so that my
sleep was sound.

We had breakfasted and saddled our horses and
were off by dawn next morning. My companions,
mufiled in furs, started in opposite directions to
ride their lonely beats, while I steered for my
hunting-ground. It was a lowering and gloomy
day; at sunrise pale, lurid sundogs hung in the

Hunting the Prongbuck 95

glimmering mist ; gusts of wind moaned through
the ravines.

At last I reached a row of bleak hills, and from
a ridge looked cautiously down on the chain of
plateaus, where I had been told I should see
the antelope. Sure enough, there they were, to
the number of several hundred, scattered over the
level, snow-streaked surface of the nearest and
largest plateau, greedily cropping the thick, short
grass. Leaving my horse tied in a hollow, I speed-
ily stalked up a coulie to within a hundred yards
of the nearest band and killed a good buck. In-
stantly all the antelope in sight ran together into
a thick mass and raced away from me, until they
went over the opposite edge of the plateau; but
almost as soon as they did so they were stopped
by deep drifts of powdered snow, and came back
to the summit of the table-land. They then
circled round the edge at a gallop, and finally
broke madly by me, jostling one another in their
frantic haste and crossed by a small ridge into the
next plateau beyond; as they went by I shot a
yearling.

I now had all the venison I wished, and would
shoot no more, but I was curious to see how the
antelope would act, and so walked after them.
They ran about half a mile, and then the whole
herd, of several hundred individuals, wheeled into
line fronting me, like so many cavalry, and stood

9^ The Wilderness Hunter

motionless, the white and brown bands on their
necks looking like the facings on a uniform. As
I walked near they again broke and rushed to the
end of the valley. Evidently they feared to leave
the fiats for the broken country beyond, where
the rugged hills were riven by gorges, in some of
which snow lay deep even thus early in the season.
Accordingly, after galloping a couple of times
round the valley, they once more broke by me, at
short range, and tore back along the plateaus to
that on which I had first found them. Their evi-
dent and extreme reluctance to venture into the
broken country round about made me readily un-
derstand the tales I had heard of game butchers
killing over a hundred individuals at a time out
of a herd so situated.

I walked back to my game, dressed it, and
lashed the saddles and hams behind me on my
horse ; I had chosen old Sorrel Joe for the trip be-
cause he was strong, tough, and quiet. Then I
started for the ranch, keeping to the prairie as
long as I could, because there the going was
easier; sometimes I rode, sometimes I ran on
foot, leading Sorrel Joe.

Late in the afternoon, as I rode over a roll in
the prairie I saw ahead of me a sight very unusual
at that season; a small emigrant train going
westward. There were three white-topped prai-
rie schooners, containing the household goods,

Hunting the Prongbuck 97

the tow-headed children, and the hard-faced,
bony women; the tired horses were straining
wearily in the traces; the bearded, moody men
walked alongside. They had been belated by
sickness, and the others of their company had
gone ahead to take up claims along the Yellow-
stone; now they themselves were pushing for-
ward in order to reach the holdings of their
friends before the first deep snows stopped all
travel. They had no time to halt ; for there were
still two or three miles to go that evening before
they could find a sheltered resting-place, with
fuel, grass, and water. A little while after pass-
ing them I turned in the saddle and looked back.
The lonely little train stood out sharply on the
sky-line, the wagons looming black against the
cold, red west as they toiled steadily onward
across the snowy plain.

Night soon fell ; but I cared little, for I was on
ground I knew. The old horse threaded his way
at a lope along the familiar game trails and cattle
paths; in a couple of hours I caught the gleam
from the firelit windows of the ranch-house. No
man who, for his good-fortune, has at times in his
life endured toil and hardship, ever fails to ap-
preciate the strong elemental pleasures of rest,
after labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter
after bitter cold.

So much for the winter hunting. But in the

98 The Wilderness Hunter

fall, when the grass is dry as tinder, the antelope
hunter, like other plainsmen, must sometimes face
fire instead of frost. Fire is one of the most
dreaded enemies of the ranchmen on the cattle
ranges ; and fighting a big prairie fire is a work of
extraordinary labor, and sometimes of danger.
The line of flame, especially when seen at night,
undulating like a serpent, is very beautiful;
though it lacks the terror and grandeur of the
great forest fires.

One October, Ferguson and I, with one of the
cow-hands, and a friend from the East, took the
wagon for an antelope hunt in the broken country
between the Little Missouri and the Beaver. The
cowboy drove the wagon to a small spring, near
some buttes which are well distinguished by a
number of fossil tree-stumps ; while the rest of us,
who were mounted on good horses, made a circle
after antelope. We found none, and rode on to
camp, reaching it about the middle of the after-
noon. We had noticed several columns of smoke
in the southeast, showing that prairie fires were
under way; but we thought that they were too
far off to endanger our camp, and accordingly un-
saddled our horses and sat down to a dinner of
bread, beans, and coffee. Before we were through
the smoke began to pour over a ridge a mile dis-
tant in such quantities that we ran thither with
our slickers, hoping to find some stretch of broken

Frost, Fire, and Thirst . 99

ground where the grass was sparse, and where
we could fight the fire with effect. Our hopes
were vain. Before we reached the ridge the fire
came over its crest, and ran down in a long tongue
between two scoria buttes. Here the grass was
quite short and thin, and we did our best to beat
out the flames ; but they gradually gained on us,
and as they reached the thicker grass lower down
the slope, they began to roar and dart forward in
a way that bade us pay heed to our own safety.
Finally they reached a winding line of brushwood
in the bottom of the coulie ; and as this burst into
a leaping blaze we saw it was high time to look to
the safety of our camp, and ran back to it at top
speed. Ferguson, who had been foremost in
fighting the fire, was already scorched and black-
ened.

We were camped on the wagon trail which leads
along the divide almost due south to Sentinel
Butte. The line of fire was fanned by a southeast-
erly breeze, and was therefore advancing diago-
nally to the divide. If we could drive the wagon
southward on the trail in time to get it past the
fire before the latter reached the divide, we would
be to windward of the flames, and therefore in
safety. Accordingly, while the others were hastily
harnessing the team, and tossing the bedding and
provisions into the wagon, I threw the saddle on
my horse, and galloped down the trail, to see if

loo The Wilderness Hunter

there was yet time to adopt this expedient. I
soon found that there was not. Half a mile from
camp the trail dipped into a deep coulie, where
fair-sized trees and dense undergrowth made a
long winding row of brush and timber. The trail
led right under the trees at the upper end of this
coulie. As I galloped by I saw that the fire had
struck the trees a quarter of a mile below me ; in
the dried timber it instantly sprang aloft like a
giant, and roared in a thunderous monotone as it
swept up the coulie. I galloped to the hill ridge
ahead, saw that the fire line had already reached
the divide, and turned my horse sharp on his
haunches. As I again passed under the trees, the
fire, running like a race -horse in the brush, had
reached the road ; its breath was hot in my face ;
tongues of quivering flame leaped over my head
and kindled the grass on the hillside fifty yards
away.

When I got back to camp Ferguson had taken
measures for the safety of the wagon. He had
moved it across the coulie, which at this point had
a wet bottom, making a bar to the progress of the
flames until they had time to work across lower
down. Meanwhile we fought to keep the fire from
entering the well-grassed space on the hither side
of the coulie, between it and a row of scoria buttes.
Favored by a streak of clay ground, where the
grass was sparse, we succeeded in beating out the

Frost, Fire, and Thirst loi

flame as it reached this clay streak, and again
beating it out when it ran round the buttes and
began to back up towards us against the wind.
Then we recrossed the couHe with the wagon, be-
fore the fire swept up the farther side; and so,
when the flames passed by, they left us camped on
a green oasis in the midst of a charred, smoking
desert. We thus saved some good grazing for
our horses.

But our fight with the fire had only begun. No
stockman will see a fire waste the range and de-
stroy the winter feed of the stock without spending
every ounce of his strength in the effort to put a
stop to its ravages — even when, as in our case, the
force of men and horses at hand is so small as to
offer only the very slenderest hope of success ,

We set about the task in the way customary in
the cattle country. It is impossible for any but a
very large force to make head against a prairie fire
while there is any wind ; but the wind usually fails
after nightfall, and accordingly the main fight is
generally waged during the hours of darkness.

Before dark we drove to camp and shot a stray
steer, and then split its carcass in two lengthwise
with an axe. After sundown the wind lulled ; and
we started towards the line of fire, which was
working across a row of broken grassy hills three
quarters of a mile distant. Two of us were on
horseback, dragging a half carcass, bloody side

I02 The Wilderness Hunter

down, by means of ropes leading from our saddle-
horns to the fore and hind legs; the other two
followed on foot with slickers and wet saddle
blankets. There was a reddish glow in the night
air, and the waving, bending lines of flame showed
in great bright curves against the hillsides ahead
of us.

When we reached them, we found the fire burn-
ing in a long, continuous line. It was not making
rapid headway, for the air was still, and the flames
stood upright, two or three feet high. Lengthen-
ing the ropes, one of us spurred his horse across
the fire line, and then, wheeling, we dragged the
carcass along it ; one horseman being on the burnt
ground, and one on the unburnt grass, while the
body of the steer lay lengthwise across the line.
The weight and the blood smothered the fire as
we twitched the carcass over the burning grass;
and the two men following behind with their
blankets and slickers readily beating out any
isolated tufts of flames.

The fire made the horses wild, and it was not
always easy to manage both them and the ropes,
so as to keep the carcass true on the line. Some-
times there would be a slight puff of wind, and
then the man on the grass side of the line ran the
risk of a scorching. We were blackened with
smoke, and the taut ropes hurt our thighs ; while
at times the plunging horses tried to buck or bolt

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 103

It was worse when we came to some deep gully or
ravine, breaking the line of fire. Into this we of
course had to plunge, so as to get across to the fire
on the other side. After the glare of the flame the
blackness of the ravine was Stygian ; we could see
nothing, and simply spurred our horses into it any-
where, taking our chances. Down we would go,
stumbling, sliding, and pitching, over cut banks
and into holes and bushes, while the carcass
bounded behind, now catching on a stump, and
now fetching loose with a *' pluck" that brought it
full on the horses' haunches, driving them nearly
crazy with fright. The pull up the opposite bank
was, if anything, worse.

By midnight the half -carcass was worn through ;
but we had stifled the fire in the comparatively
level country to the eastwards. Back we went to
camp, drank huge draughts of muddy water, de-
voured roast ox-ribs, and dragged out the other
half carcass to fight the fire on the west. But
after hours of wearing labor we found ourselves
altogether baffled by the exceeding roughness of
the ground. There was some little risk to us who
were on horseback, dragging the carcass ; we had
to feel our way along knife-like ridges in the dark,
one ahead and the other behind, while the steer
dangled over the precipice on one side; and in
going down the buttes and into the canyons only
by extreme care could we avoid getting tangled in

I04 The Wilderness Hunter

the ropes and rolling down in a heap. Moreover,
the fire was in such rough places that the carcass
could not be twitched fairly over it, and so we
could not put it out. Before dawn we were
obliged to abandon our fruitless efforts and seek
camp, stiffened and weary. From a hill we looked
back through the pitchy night at the fire we had
failed to conquer. It had been broken into many
lines by the roughness of the chasm-strewn and
hilly country. Of these lines of flame some were in
advance, some behind, some rushing forward in
full blast and fury, some standing still ; here and
there one wheeling towards a flank, or burning in
a semicircle round an isolated hill. Some of the
lines were flickering out; gaps were showing in
others. In the darkness it looked like the rush of
a mighty army, bearing triumphantly onwards, in
spite of a resistance so stubborn as to break its
formation into many fragments and cause each
one of them to wage its own battle for victory or
defeat.

On the wide plains where the prongbuck dwells
the hunter must sometimes face thirst, as well as
fire and frost. The only time I ever really suffered
from thirst was while hunting prongbuck.

It was late in the summer. I was with the
ranch- wagon on the way to join a round-up, and
as we were out of meat I started for a day's hunt.
Before leaving in the morning I helped to haul the

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 105

wagon across the river. It was fortunate I stayed,
as it turned out. There was no regular ford where
we made the crossing ; we anticipated no trouble,
as the water was very low, the season being dry.
However, we struck a quicksand, in which the
wagon settled, while the frightened horses floun-
dered helplessly. All the riders at once got their
ropes on the wagon, and, hauling from the saddle,
finally pulled it through. This took time ; and it
was ten o'clock when I rode away from the river,
at which my horse and I had just drunk — our last
drink for over twenty-four hours, as it turned
out.

After two- or three hours' ride, up winding cou-
lies, and through the scorched desolation of patches
of Bad Lands, I reached the rolling prairie. The
heat and drought had long burned the short grass
dull brown ; the bottoms of what had been pools
were covered with hard, dry, cracked earth. The
day was cloudless, and the heat oppressive. There
were many antelope, but I got only one shot,
breaking a buck's leg; and, though I followed it
for a couple of hours, I could not overtake it. By
this time it was late in the afternoon, and I was
far away from the river ; so I pushed for a creek,
in the bed of which I had always found pools of
water, especially toward the head, as is usual with
plains watercourses. To my chagrin, however,
they all proved to be dry ; and though I rode up

io6 The Wilderness Hunter

the creek bed toward the head, carefully searching
for any sign of water, night closed on me before I
found any. For two or three hours I stumbled on,
leading my horse, in my fruitless search; then a
tumble over a cut bank in the dark warned me
that I might as well stay where I was for the rest
of the warm night. Accordingly, I unsaddled the
horse, and tied him to a sage-brush ; after awhile
he began to feed on the dewy grass. At first I
was too thirsty to sleep. Finally I fell into slum-
ber, and when I awoke at dawn I felt no thirst.
For an hour or two more I continued my search
for water in the creek bed ; then abandoned it and
rode straight for the river. By the time we
reached it my thirst had come back with re-
doubled force, my mouth was parched, and the
horse was in quite as bad a plight ; we rushed down
to the brink, and it seemed as if we could neither
of us ever drink our fill of the tepid, rather muddy
water. Of course this experience was merely un-
pleasant ; thirst is not a source of real danger in
the plains country proper, whereas in the hideous
deserts that extend from southern Idaho through
Utah and Nevada to Arizona, it ever menaces
with death the hunter and explorer.

In the plains the weather is apt to be in ex-
tremes; the heat is tropical, the cold arctic, and
the droughts are relieved by furious floods. These
are generally most severe and lasting in the spring,

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 107

after the melting of the snow; and fierce local
freshets follow the occasional cloudbursts. The
large rivers then become wholly impassable, and
even the smaller are formidable obstacles. It is
not easy to get cattle across a swollen stream,
where the current runs like a turbid mill-race over
the bed of shifting quicksand. Once five of us took
a thousand head of trail steers across the Little
Missouri when the river was up, and it was no
light task. The muddy current was boiling past
the banks, covered with driftwood and foul yellow
froth, and the frightened cattle shrank from en-
tering it. At last, by hard riding, with much
loud shouting and swinging of ropes, we got the
leaders in, and the whole herd followed. After
them we went in our turn, the horses swimming
at one moment, and the next staggering and
floundering through the quicksand. I was riding
my pet cutting horse, Muley, which has the pro-
voking habit of making great bounds where the
water is just not deep enough for swimming ; once
he almost unseated me. Some of the cattle were
caught by the currents and rolled over and over;
most of these we were able, with the help of our
ropes, to put on their feet again; only one was
drowned, or rather choked in a quicksand. Many
swam down stream, and in consequence struck a
difficult landing, where the river ran under a cut
bank; these we had to haul out with our ropes.

io8 The Wilderness Hunter

Both men and horses were well tired by the time
the whole herd was across.

Although I have often had a horse down in
quicksand, or in crossing a swollen river, and have
had to work hard to save him, I have never myself
lost one under such circumstances. Yet once I
saw the horse of one of my men drown under
him directly in front of the ranch-house, while
he was trying to cross the river. This was in early
spring, soon after the ice had broken.

When making long wagon-trips over the great
plains, antelope often offer the only source of meat
supply, save for occasional water-fowl, sage-fowl,
and prairie-fowl — the sharp-tailed prairie-fowl, be
it understood. This is the characteristic grouse of
the cattle country ; the true prairie-fowl is a bird of
the farming land farther east.

Towards the end of the summer of '92 I found it
necessary to travel from my ranch to the Black
Hills, some two hundred miles south. The ranch-
wagon went with me, driven by an all-round
plainsman, a man of iron nerves and varied past,
the sheriff of our county. He was an old friend of
mine ; at one time I had served as deputy-sheriff
for the northern end of the coimty. In the wagon
we carried our food and camp kit, and our three
rolls of bedding, each wrapped in a thick, nearly
waterproof canvas sheet ; we had a tent, but we
never needed it. The load being light, the wagon

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 109

was drawn by but a span of horses — a pair of wild
runaways, tough, and good travellers. My fore-
jnan and I rode beside the wagon on our wiry, un-
kempt, unshod cattle-ponies. They carried us all
day at a rack, pace, single-foot, or slow lope, varied
by rapid galloping when we made long circles
after game ; the trot, the favorite gait with eastern
park-riders, is disliked by all peoples who have to
do much of their life-work in the saddle.

The first day's ride was not attractive. The heat
was intense and the dust stifling, as we had to
drive some loose horses for the first few miles, and
afterwards to ride up and down the sandy river-
bed, where the cattle had gathered, to look over
some young steers we had put on the range the
preceding spring. When we did camp it was by a
pool of stagnant water, in a creek bottom, and the
mosquitoes were a torment. Nevertheless, as eve-
ning fell, it was pleasant to climb a little knoll
nearby and gaze at the rows of strangely colored
buttes, grass-clad, or of bare earth and scoria,
their soft reds and purples showing as through a
haze, and their irregular outlines gradually losing
their sharpness in the fading twilight.

Next morning the weather changed, growing
cooler, and we left the tangle of ravines and Bad
Lands, striking out across the vast sea-like prairies.
Hour after hour, under the bright sun, the wagon
drew slowly ahead, over the immense rolling

no The Wilderness Hunter

stretches of short grass, dipping down each long
slope until it reached the dry, imperfectly out-
lined creek bed at the bottom, — wholly devoid of
water and without so much as a shrub of wood, —
and then ascending the gentle rise on the other
side until at last it topped the broad divide, or
watershed, beyond which lay the shallow, winding
coulies of another creek system. From each rise
of ground we looked far and wide over the sunlit
prairie, with its interminable undulations. The
sicklebill curlews which in spring, while breeding,
hover above the travelling horseman with cease-
less clamor, had for the most part gone southward.
We saw only one small party of half a dozen birds ;
they paid little heed to us, but piped to one another,
making short flights, and on alighting stood erect,
first spreading and then folding and setting their
wings with a slow, graceful motion. Little horned
larks continually ran along the ruts of the faint
wagon-track, just ahead of the team, and twittered
plaintively as they rose, while flocks of longspurs
swept hither and thither, in fitful, irregular flight.
My foreman and I usually rode far off to one
side of the wagon, looking out for antelope. Of
these we at first saw few, but they grew more
plentiful as we journeyed onward, approaching a
big, scantily wooded creek, where I had found the
pronghorn abundant in previous seasons. They
were very wary and watchful, whether going

Frost, Fire, and Thirst in

singly or in small parties, and the lay of the land
made it exceedingly difficult to get within range.
The last time I had hunted in this neighborhood
was in the fall, at the height of the rutting season.
Prongbucks, even more than other game, seem
fairly maddened by erotic excitement. At the
time of my former hunt they were in ceaseless
motion ; each master buck being incessantly occu-
pied in herding his harem, and fighting would-be
rivals, while single bucks chased single does as
greyhounds chase hares, or else, if no does were in
sight, from sheer excitement ran to and fro as if
crazy, racing at full speed in one direction, then
halting, wheeling, and tearing back again just as
hard as they could go.

At this time, however, the rut was still some
weeks off, and all the bucks had to do was to feed
and keep a lookout for enemies. Try my best, I
could not get within less than four or five hundred
yards, and though I took a number of shots at
these, or at even longer distances, I missed. If a
man is out merely for a day's hunt, and has all the
time he wishes, he will not scare the game and
waste cartridges by shooting at such long ranges,
preferring to spend half a day or more in patient
waiting and careful stalking ; but if he is travelling,
and is therefore cramped for time, he must take
his chances, even at the cost of burning a good
deal of powder.

112 The Wilderness Hunter

I was finally helped to success by a characteris-
tic freak of the game I was following. No other
animals are as keen-sighted, or are normally as
wary as pronghorns ; but no others are so whim-
sical and odd in their behavior at times, or so sub-
ject to fits of the most stupid curiosity and panic.
Late in the afternoon, on topping a rise, I saw two
good bucks racing off about three hundred yards
to one side; I sprang to the ground, and fired
three shots at them in vain, as they ran like quar-
ter-horses until they disappeared over a slight
swell. In a minute, however, back they came,
suddenly appearing over the crest of the same
swell, immediately in front of me, and, as I after-
wards found by pacing, some three hundred and
thirty yards away. They stood side by side facing
me, and remained motionless, unheeding the crack
of the Winchester ; I aimed at the right-hand one,
but a front shot of the kind, at such a distance, is
rather difficult, and it was not until I fired for the
fourth time that he sank back out of sight. I
could not tell whether I had killed him, and took
two shots at his mate, as the latter went off, but
without effect. Running forward, I found the first
one dead, the bullet having gone through him
lengthwise ; the other did not seem satisfied even
yet, and kept hanging round in the distance for
some minutes, looking at us.

I had thus bagged one prongbuck, as the net

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 113

outcome of the expenditure of fourteen cartridges.
This was certainly not good shooting ; but neither
was it as bad as it would seem to the man inex-
perienced in antelope hunting. When fresh meat
is urgently needed, and when time is too short, the
hunter who is after antelope in an open, fiattish
country must risk many long shots. In no other
kind of hunting is there so much long-distance
shooting, or so many shots fired for every head of
game bagged.

Throwing the buck into the wagon we continued
our journey across the prairie, no longer following
any road, and before sunset jolted down towards
the big creek for which we had been heading.
There were many water-holes therein, and timber
of considerable size ; box-alder and ash grew here
and there in clumps and fringes, beside the ser-
pentine curves of the nearly dry torrent bed, the
growth being thickest under the shelter of the
occasional low bluffs. We drove down to a heavily
grassed bottom, near a deep, narrow pool, with, at
one end, that rarest of luxuries in the plains
country, a bubbling spring of pure, cold water.
With plenty of wood, delicious water, ample feed
for the horses, and fresh meat we had every com-
fort and luxury incident to camp life in good
weather. The bedding was tossed out on a smooth
spot beside the wagon; the horses were watered
and tethered to picket-pins where the feed was

114 The Wilderness Hunter

best ; water was fetched from the spring ; a deep
hole was dug for the fire, and the grass round about
carefully burned off; and in a few moments the
bread was baking in the Dutch oven, the potatoes
were boiling, antelope steaks were sizzling in the
frying-pan, and the kettle was ready for the tea.
After supper, eaten with the relish known well to
every hardworking and successful hunter, we sat
for half an hour or so round the fire, and then
turned in under the blankets, pulled the tarpaulins
over us, and listened drowsily to the wailing of the
coyotes until we fell sound asleep.

We determined to stay in this camp all day, so
as to try and kill another prongbuck, as we
would soon be past the good hunting-grounds. I
did not have to go far for my game next morning,
for soon after breakfast, while sitting on my can-
vas bag cleaning my rifle, the sheriff suddenly
called to me that a bunch of antelope was coming
towards us. Sure enough there they were, four in
number, rather over half a mile off, on the first
bench of the prairie, two or three hundred yards
back from the creek, leisurely feeding in our direc-
tion. In a minute or two they were out of sight,
and I instantly ran along the creek towards them
for a quarter of a mile, and then crawled up a
short, shallow coulie, close to the head of which
they seemed likely to pass. When nearly at the
end I cautiously raised my hatless head, peered

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 115

through some straggling weeds, and at once saw
the horns of the buck. He was a big fellow, about
a hundred and twenty yards off ; the others, a doe
and two kids, were in front. As I lifted myself
on my elbows he halted and turned his raised head
towards me; the sunlight shone bright on his
supple, vigorous body with its markings of sharply
contrasted brown and white. I pulled trigger,
and away he went ; but I could see that his race
was nearly run, and he fell after going a few hun-
dred yards.

Soon after this a windstorm blew up, so violent
that we could hardly face it. In the late after-
noon it died away, and I again walked out to
hunt, but saw only does and kids, at which I
would not shoot. As the sun set, leaving bars of
amber and pale red in the western sky, the air be-
came absolutely calm. In the waning evening the
low, far-off ridges were touched with a violet light ;
then the hues grew sombre, and still darkness fell
on the lonely prairie.

Next morning we drove to the river, and kept
near it for several days, most of the time following
the tracks made by the heavy wagons accompany-
ing the trail-herds — this being one of the regular
routes followed by the great throng of slow-moving
cattle yearly driven from the south. At other
times we made our own road. Twice or thrice
we passed ranch -houses ; the men being absent

ii6 The Wilderness Hunter

on the round-up, they were shut, save one, which
was inhabited by two or three lean Texan cow-
punchers, with sun-burned faces and reckless
eyes, who had come up with a trail-herd from the
Cherokee strip. Once, near the old Sioux crossing,
where the Dakota war-bands used to ford the river
on their forays against the Crows and the settlers
along the Yellowstone, we met a large horse-herd.
The tough, shabby, tired-looking animals, one or
two of which were loaded with bedding and a
scanty supply of food, were driven by three travel-
worn, hard-faced men, with broad hats, shaps, and
long pistols in their belts. They had brought the
herd over plain and mountain pass all the way
from far distant Oregon.

It was a wild, rough country, bare of trees, save
for a fringe of cottonwoods along the river, and
occasional clumps of cedar on the jagged, brown
buttes; as we went farther the hills turned the
color of chalk, and were covered with a growth of
pine. We came upon acres of sunflowers as we
journeyed southward ; they are not as tall as they
are in the rich bottom lands of Kansas, where the
splendid blossoms, on their strong stalks, stand as
high as the head of a man on horseback.

Though there were many cattle here, big game
was scarce. However, I killed plenty of prairie-
chickens and sage-hens for the pot; and as the
sage-hens were still feeding largely on crickets

Frost, Fire, and Thirst 117

and grasshoppers, and not exclusively on sage,
they were just as good eating as the prairie-
chickens. I used the rifle, cutting off their heads
or necks, and, as they had to be shot on the
ground, and often while in motion, or else while
some distance away, it was more difficult than
shooting off the heads of grouse in the mountains,
where the birds sit motionless in trees. The head
is a small mark, while to hit the body is usually to
spoil the bird ; so I found that I averaged three or
four cartridges for every head neatly taken off,
the remaining shots representing spoiled birds and
misses.

For the last sixty or seventy miles of our trip
we left the river and struck off across a great, deso-
late gumbo prairie. There was no game, no wood
for fuel, and the rare water-holes were far apart,
so that we were glad when, as we toiled across the
monotonous succession of long, swelling ridges,
the dim, cloud-like mass, looming vague and purple
on the rim of the horizon ahead of us, gradually
darkened and hardened into the bold outline of
the Black Hills.

CHAPTER VI

AMONG THE HIGH HILLS; THE BIGHORN OR MOUN-
TAIN SHEEP

DURING the summer of 1886 I hunted
chiefly to keep the ranch in meat. It
was a very pleasant summer; although
it was followed by the worst winter we ever wit-
nessed on the plains. I was much at the ranch,
where I had a good deal of writing to do; but
every week or two I left, to ride among the line
camps, or spend a few days on any round-up
which happened to be in the neighborhood.

These days of vigorous work among the cattle
were themselves full of pleasure. At dawn we
were in the saddle, the morning air cool in our
faces; the red sunrise saw us loping across the
grassy reaches of prairie land, or climbing in single
file among the rugged buttes. All the forenoon we
spent riding the long circle with the cow-punchers
of the round-up ; in the afternoon we worked the
herd, cutting the cattle, with much breakneck
galloping and dextrous halting and wheeling.
Then came the excitement and hard labor of rop-
ing, throwing, and branding the wild and vigorous

118

Among the High Hills 119

range calves — in a corral, if one was handy ; other-
wise, in a ring of horsemen. Soon after nightfall
we lay down — in a log hut or tent, if at a line camp ;
under the open sky, if with the round-up wagon.

After ten days or so of such work, in which
every man had to do his full share, — for laggards
and idlers, no matter who, get no mercy in the real
and healthy democracy of the round-up, — I would
go back to the ranch to turn to my books with
added zest for a fortnight. Yet even during these
weeks at the ranch there was some outdoor work ;
for I was breaking two or three colts. I took my
time, breaking them gradually and gently — not,
after the usual cowboy fashion, in a hurry, by
sheer main strength and rough riding, with the at-
tendant danger to the limbs of the man and very
probable ruin to the manners of the horse. We
rose early; each morning I stood on the low-
roofed verandah, looking out, under the line of
murmuring, glossy-leaved cottonwoods, across the
shallow river, to see the sun flame above the line of
bluffs opposite. In the evening I strolled off for
an hour or two's walk, rifle in hand. The roomy,
home-like ranch-house, with its log walls, shingled
roof, and big chimneys and fireplaces, stands in a
glade, in the midst of the thick forest, which covers
half the bottom ; behind rises, bare and steep, the
wall of peaks, ridges, and table-lands.

During the summer in question, I once or twice

I20 The Wilderness Hunter

shot a whitetail buck right on this large bottom;
once or twice I killed a blacktail in the hills behind,
not a mile from the ranch-house. Several times I
killed and brought in prongbucks, rising before
dawn, and riding off on a good horse for an all-
day's hunt in the rolling prairie country, twelve or
fifteen miles away. Occasionally I took the wagon
and one of the men, driving to some good hunting-
ground and spending a night or two; usually re-
turning with two or three prongbucks, and once
with an elk — but this was later in the fall. Not
infrequently I went away by myself on horseback
for a couple of days, when all the men were on the
round-up, and when I wished to hunt thoroughly
some country quite a distance from the ranch.
I made one such hunt in late August, because I
happened to hear that a small bunch of mountain
sheep were haunting a tract of very broken
ground, with high hills, about fifteen miles away.

I left the ranch early in the morning, riding my
favorite hunting-horse, old Manitou. The blanket
and oilskin slicker were rolled and strapped be-
hind the saddle; for provisions I carried salt, a
small bag of hardtack, and a little tea and sugar,
with a metal cup in which to boil my water. The
rifle and a score of cartridges in my woven belt
completed my outfit. On my journey I shot two
prairie-chickens from a covey in the bottom of a
brush coulie.

Among the High Hills 121

I rode more than six hours before reaching a
good spot to camp. At first my route lay across
grassy plateaus, and along smooth, wooded cou-
lies ; but after a few miles the ground became very
rugged and difficult. At last I got into the heart
of the Bad Lands proper, where the hard, v/rinkled
earth was torn into shapes as sullen and grotesque
as those of dreamland. The hills rose high, their
barren flanks carved and channelled, their tops
mere needles and knife crests. Bands of black,
red, and purple varied the gray and yellow-brown
of their sides ; the tufts of scanty vegetation were
dull green. Sometimes I rode my horse at the
Dottom of narrow washouts, between straight
walls of clay, but a few feet apart; sometimes I
had to lead him as he scrambled up, down, and
across the sheer faces of the buttes. The glare
from the bare clay walls dazzled the eye ; the air
was burning under the hot August sun. I saw
nothing living except the rattlesnakes, of which
there were very many.

At last, in the midst of this deviFs wilderness, I
came on a lovely valley. A spring trickled out of
a cedar canyon, and below this spring the narrow,
deep ravine was green with luscious grass, and
was smooth for some hundreds of yards. Here I
unsaddled, and turned old Manitou loose to drink
and feed at his leisure. At the edge of the dark
cedar wood I cleared a spot for my bed, and drew

122 The Wilderness Hunter

a few dead sticks for the fire. Then I lay down
and watched drowsily until the afternoon shadows
filled the wild and beautiful gorge in which I was
camped. This happened early, for the valley was
very narrow and the hills on either hand were
steep and high.

Springing to my feet, I climbed the nearest
ridge, and then made my way, by hard clamber-
ing, from peak to peak and from crest to crest ,
sometimes crossing and sometimes skirting the
deep washouts and canyons. When possible, I
avoided appearing on the sky-line, and I moved
with the utmost caution, walking in a wide sweep
so as to hunt across and up wind. There was
much sheep sign, some of it fresh, though I saw
none of the animals themselves ; the square slots,
with the indented marks of the toe points wide
apart, contrasting strongly with the heart-shaped
and delicate footprints of deer. The animals had,
according to their habit, beaten trails along the
summits of the higher crests ; little side-trails lead-
ing to any spur, peak, or other vantage point from
which there was a wide outlook over the country
roundabout.

The bighorns of the Bad Lands, unlike those of
the mountains, shift their range but little, winter
or summer. Save in the breeding season, when
each master ram gets together his own herd, the
ewes, lambs, and yearlings are apt to go in bands

The Bighorn or Mountain Sheep 123

by themselves, while the males wander in small
parties; now and then a very morose old fellow
lives by himself, in some precipitous, out-of-the-
way retreat. The rut begins with them much
later than with deer; the exact time varies with
the locality, but it is always after the bitter winter
weather has set in. Then the old rams fight
fiercely together, and on rare occasions utter a
long grunting bleat or call. They are marvellous
climbers, and dwell by choice always among cliffs
and jagged, broken ground, whether wooded or
not. An old bighorn ram is heavier than the
largest buck ; his huge, curved horns, massive yet
supple build, and proud bearing mark him as one
of the noblest beasts of the chase. He is wary;
great skill and caution must be shown in approach-
ing him; and no one but a good climber, with a
steady head, sound lungs, and trained muscles,
can successfully hunt him in his own rugged fast-
nesses. The chase of no other kind of American
big game ranks higher, or more thoroughly tests
the manliest qualities of the hunter.

I walked back to camp in the gloaming, taking
care to reach it before it grew really dark ; for in
the Bad Lands it is entirely impossible to travel,
or to find any given locality, after nightfall. Old
Manitou had eaten his fill and looked up at me
with pricked ears and wise, friendly face as I
climbed down the side of the cedar canyon ; then

124 The Wilderness Hunter

he came slowly towards me to see if I had not
something for him. I rubbed his soft nose and
gave him a cracker ; then I picketed him to a soli-
tary cedar, where the feed was good. Afterwards
I kindled a small fire, roasted both prairie-fowl,
ate one, and put the other by for breakfast ; and
soon rolled myself in my blanket, with the saddle
for a pillow, and the oilskin beneath. Manitou
was munching the grass nearby. I lay just out-
side the line of stiff black cedars; the night air
was soft in my face; I gazed at the shining and
brilliant multitude of stars until my eyelids closed.
The chill breath which comes before dawn
awakened me^ It was still and dark. Through
the gloom I could indistinctly make out the loom
of the old horse, lying down, I was speedily
ready, and groped and stumbled slowly up the
hill, and then along its crest to a peak. Here I
sat down and waited a quarter of an hour or so,
until gray appeared in the east, and the dim
light-streaks enabled me to walk farther. Before
sunrise I was two miles from camp ; then I crawled
cautiously to a high ridge and, crouching behind it,
scanned all the landscape eagerly. In a few min-
utes a movement about a third of a mile to the
right, midway down a hill, caught my eve. An-
other glance showed me three Vs^hite specks moviii^
along the hillside. They were the white rumps of
three fine mountain sheep, on their way to drink

The Bighorn or Mountain Sheep 125

at a little alkaline pool in the bottom of a deep,
narrow valley. In a moment they went out of
sight round a bend of the valley ; and I rose and
trotted briskly towards them, along the ridge.
There were two or three deep gullies to cross, and
a high shoulder over which to clamber ; so I was
out of breath when I reached the bend beyond
which they had disappeared. Taking advantage
of a scrawny sage-brush as cover, I peeped over the
edge, and at once saw the sheep — three big young
rams. They had finished drinking, and were
standing beside the little miry pool, about three
hundred yards distant. Slipping back, I dropped
down into the bottom of the valley, where a nar-
row washout zigzagged from side to side, between
straight walls of clay. The pool was in the upper
end of this washout, under a cut bank.

An indistinct game trail, evidently sometimes
used by both bighorn and blacktail, ran up this
washout ; the bottom was of clay, so that I walked
noiselessly ; and the crookedness of the washout's
course afforded ample security against discovery
by the sharp eyes of the quarry. In a couple of
minutes I stalked stealthily round the last bend,
my rifle cocked and at the ready, expecting to see
the rams by the pool. However, they had gone,
and the muddy water was settling in their deep
hoof -marks. Running on, I looked over the edge
of the cut bank and saw them slowly quartering

126 The Wilderness Hunter

up the hillside, cropping the sparse tufts of coarse
grass. I whistled, and as they stood at gaze I
put a bullet into the biggest, a little too far aft of
the shoulder, but ranging forward. He raced
after the others, but soon fell behind, and turned
off on his own line, at a walk, with drooping head.
As he bled freely, I followed his tracks, found him,
very sick, in a washout a quarter of a mile beyond,
and finished him with another shot. After dress-
ing him, and cutting off the saddle and hams, as
well as the head, I walked back to camp, break-
fasted, and rode Manitou to where the sheep lay.
Packing it securely behind the saddle, and shifting
the blanket-roll to in front of the saddle-horn, I
led the horse until we were clear of the Bad Lands ;
then mounted him, and was back at the ranch soon
after midday. The mutton of a fat young moun-
tain ram, at this season of the year, is delicious.

Such quick success is rare in hunting sheep.
Generally each head has cost me several days of
hard, faithful work; and more than once I have
hunted over a week without any reward whatso-
ever. But the quarry is so noble that the ulti-
mate triumph — sure to come, if the hunter will
but persevere long enough — atones for all pre-
vious toil and failure.

Once a lucky stalk and shot at a bighorn was
almost all that redeemed a hunt in the Rockies
from failure. I was high among the mountains

The Bighorn or Mountain Sheep 127

at the time, but was dogged by ill luck; I had
seen but little, and I had not shot very well. One
morning I rose early, and hunted steadily until
midday without seeing anything. A mountain
hunter was with me. At noon we sat down to
rest, and look over the country, from behind a
shield of dwarf evergreens, on the brink of a
mighty chasm. The rocks fell downwards in huge
cliffs, stern and barren; from far below rose the
strangled roaring of the torrent, as the foaming
masses of green and white water churned round
the boulders in the stream bed. Except this
humming of the wild water, and the soughing of
the pines, there was no sound. We were sitting
on a kind of jutting promontory of rock, so that we
could scan the cliffs far and near. First, I took the
glasses, and scrutinized the ground almost rod by
rod, for nearly half an hour ; then my companion
took them in turn. It is very hard to make out
game, especially when lying down, and still; and
it is curious to notice how, after fruitlessly scan-
ning a country through the glasses for a consid-
erable period, a herd of animals will suddenly
appear in the field of vision as if by magic. In
this case, while my companion held the glasses for
the second time, a slight motion caught his eye ;
and looking attentively he made out, five or six
hundred yards distant, a mountain ram lying
among some loose rocks and small bushes at the

128 The Wilderness Hunter

head of a little grassy cove or nook, in a shallow
break between two walls of the cliff. So well did
the bluish gray of its body harmonize in tint with
the rocks and shrubbery that it was some time
before I could see it, even when pointed out to me.
The wind was favorable, and we at once drew
back and began a cautious stalk. It was impos-
sible, owing to the nature of the cliffs above and
below the bighorn's resting-place, to get a shot
save by creeping along nearly on a level with him.
Accordingly we worked our way down through a
big cleft in the rocks, being forced to go very
slowly and carefully lest we should start a loose
stone, and at last reached a narrow terrace of
rock and grass, along which we walked compara-
tively at our ease. Soon it dwindled away, and
we then had to do our only difficult piece of climb-
ing— a clamber for fifty or sixty feet across a steep
cliff shoulder. Some little niches and cracks in
the rock and a few projections and diminutive
ledges on its surface, barely enabled us to swarm
across, with painstaking care — not merely to
avoid alarming the game this time, but also to
avoid a slip which would have proved fatal. Once
across, we came on a long, grassy shelf, leading
round a shoulder into the cleft where the ram lay.
As I neared the end I crept forward on hands and
knees, and then crawled fiat, shoving the rifle
ahead of me, until I rounded the shoulder and

The Bighorn or Mountain Sheep 129

peered into the rift. As my eyes fell on the ram
he sprang to his feet, with a clatter of loose stones,
and stood facing me, some sixty yards off, his dark
face and white muzzle brought out finely by the
battered, curved horns. I shot into his chest,
hitting him in the sticking-place ; and after a few
mad bounds he tumbled headlong, and fell a very
great distance, unfortunately injuring one horn.

When much hunted, bighorn become the wariest
of all American game, and their chase is then
peculiarly laborious and exciting. But where
they have known nothing of men, not having been
molested by hunters, they are exceedingly tame.
Professor John Bache McMaster informs me that
in 1877 he penetrated to the Uintah Mountains of
Wyoming, which were then almost unknown to
hunters ; he found all the game very bold, and the
wild sheep in particular so unsuspicious that he
could walk up to within short rifle-range of them
in the open.

On the high mountains bighorn occasionally
get killed by a snow-slide. My old friend, the
hunter Woody, once saw a band which started
such an avalanche by running along a steep slop-
ing snow-field, it being in the spring; for several
hundred yards it thundered at their heels, but by
desperate racing they just managed to get clear.
Woody was also once an eye-witness to the rav-
ages the cougar commits among these wild sheep.

I30 The Wilderness Hunter

He was stalking a band in the snow when he saw
them suddenly scatter at a run in every direction.
Coming up he found the traces of a struggle,
and the track of a body being dragged through
the snow, together with the round footmarks of the
cougar; a little farther on lay a dead ewe, the
blood flowing from the fang wounds in her throat.

CHAPTER VII

MOUNTAIN game; THE WHITE-GOAT

LATE one August I started on a trip to the
Big Hole Basin, in western Montana, to
hunt white -goats. With me went a friend
of many hunts, John Willis, a tried mountain-man.
We left the railroad at the squalid little hamlet
of Divide, where we hired a team and wagon from
a '* busted " granger, suspected of being a Mormon,
who had failed, even with the help of irrigation,
in raising a crop. The wagon was in fairly good
order ; the harness was rotten, and needed patch-
ing with ropes; while the team consisted of two
spoiled horses, overworked and thin, but full of
the devil the minute they began to pick up condi-
tion. However, on the frontier one soon grows to
accept little facts of this kind with bland indiffer-
ence ; and Willis was not only an expert teamster,
but possessed that inexhaustible fertility of re-
source and unfailing readiness in an emergency
so characteristic of the veteran of the border.
Through hard experience he had become master of
plainscraft and woodcraft, skilled in all frontier
lore.

For a couple of days we jogged up the valley of

131

132 The Wilderness Hunter

the Big Hole River, along the mail road. At
night we camped under our wagon. At the mouth
of the stream the valley was a mere gorge, but it
broadened steadily the farther up we went, till
the rapid river wound through a wide expanse of
hilly, treeless prairie. On each side the mountains
rose, their lower flanks and the foothills covered
with the evergreen forest. We got milk and bread
at the scattered log-houses of the few settlers;
and for meat we shot sage-fowl, which abounded.
Th^y were feeding on grasshoppers at this time,
and the flesh, especially of the young birds, was as
tender and well tasting as possible ; whereas, when
we again passed through the valley in September,
we found the birds almost uneatable, being fairly
bitter with sage. Like all grouse, they are far
tamer earlier in the season than later, being very
wild in winter; and, of course, they are boldest
where they are least hunted; but for some un-
explained reason they are always tamer than the
sharp-tail prairie-fowl which are to be found in the
same locality.

Finally, we reached the neighborhood of the
Battle Ground, where a rude stone monument
commemorates the bloody drawn fight between
General Gibbons 's soldiers and the Nez Perces
warriors of Chief Joseph. Here, on the third day
of our journey, we left the beaten road and turned
toward the mountains, following an indistinct

Mountain Game 133

trail made by wood-choppers. We met with our
full share of the usual mishaps incident to prairie
travel; and towards evening our team got mired
in crossing a slough. We attempted the crossing
with some misgivings, which were warranted by
the result; for the second plunge of the horses
brought them up to their bellies in the morass,
where they stuck. It was freezing cold, with a
bitter wind blowing, and the bog holes were
skimmed with ice ; so that we passed a thoroughly
wretched two hours while freeing the horses and
unloading the wagon. However, we eventually
got across; my companion preserving an abso-
lutely unruffled temper throughout, perse veringly
whistling the ** Arkansas Traveller." At one pe-
riod, when we were up to our waists in the icy
mud, it began to sleet and hail, and I muttered
that I would "rather it did n't storm"; whereat
he stopped whistling for a moment to make the
laconic rejoinder, "We 're not having our rathers
this trip."

At nightfall we camped among the willow bushes
by a little brook. For firewood we had only dead
willow sticks ; they made a hot blaze which soon
died out ; and as the cold grew intense, we rolled
up in our blankets as soon as we had eaten our
supper. The climate of the Big Hole Basin is
alpine; that night, though it was the 20th of Au-
gust, the thermometer sank to 10° F.

134 The Wilderness Hunter

Early next morning we struck camp, shivering
with cold as we threw the stiff, frozen harness on
the horses. We soon got among the foot-hills,
where the forest was open and broken by large
glades, forming what is called a park country. The
higher we went the smaller grew the glades and
the denser the woodland ; and it began to be very
difficult to get the wagon forward. In many
places one man had to go ahead to pick out the
way, and, if necessary, to do a little chopping and
lopping with the axe, while the other followed,
driving the team. At last we were brought to a
standstill, and pitched camp beside a rapid, alder-
choked brook in the uppermost of a series of rolling
glades, hemmed in by mountains and the dense
coniferous forest. Our tent stood under a grove
of pines, close to the brook ; at night we built in
front of it a big fire of crackling, resinous logs.
Our goods were sheltered by the wagon, or cov-
ered with a tarpaulin; we threw down sprays of
odorous evergreens to make a resting-place for our
bedding ; we built small scaffolds on which to dry
the flesh of elk and deer. In an hour or two we
had round us all the many real comforts of such a
little wilderness home.

Whoever has long roamed and hunted in the
wilderness always cherishes with wistful pleasure
the memory of some among the countless camps
he has made. The camp by the margin of the

Mountain Game 135

clear, mountain-hemmed lake; the camp in the
dark and melancholy forest, where the gusty wind
booms through the tall pine tops ; the camp under
gnarled cottonwoods, on the bank of a shrunken
river, in the midst of endless grassy prairies, — of
these, and many like them, each has had its own
charm. Of course, in hunting one must expect
much hardship and repeated disappointment ; and
in many a camp, bad weather, lack of shelter, hun-
ger, thirst, or ill success with game, renders the days
and nights irksome and trying. Yet the hunter
worthy of the name always willingly takes the
bitter if by so doing he can get the sweet, and
gladly balances failure and success, spurning the
poorer souls who know neither.

We turned our horses loose, hobbling one ; and
as we did not look after them for several days,
nothing but my companion's skill as a tracker
enabled us to find them again. There was a spell
of warm weather which brought out a few of the
big bull-dog flies, which drive a horse — or indeed a
man — nearly frantic; we were in the haunts of
these dreaded and terrible scourges, which up to
the beginning of August render it impossible to
keep stock of any description unprotected, but
which are never formidable after the first frost.
In many parts of the wilderness these pests, or
else the incredible swarms of mosquitoes, black-
flies, and buffalo-gnats, render life not worth

13^ The Wilderness Hunter

living during the last weeks of spring and the
early months of summer.

There were elk and deer in the neighborhood;
also ruffed, blue, and spruce grouse; so that our
camp was soon stocked with meat. Early one
morning, while Willis was washing in the brook, a
little black bear thrust its sharp nose through the
alders a few feet from him, and then hastily with-
drew and was seen no more. The smaller wild
folk were more familiar. As usual in the northern
mountains, the gray moose-birds and voluble, ner-
vous little chipmunks made themselves at home
in the camp. Parties of chickadees visited us oc-
casionally. A family of flying squirrels lived
overhead in the grove ; and at nightfall they swept
noiselessly from tree to tree, in long, graceful
curves. There were sparrows of several kinds
moping about in the alders; and now and then
one of them would sing a few sweet, rather mourn-
ful bars.

After several days' preliminary exploration we
started on foot for white-goat. We took no packs
with us, each carrying merely his jacket, with a
loaf of bread and a paper of salt thrust into the
pockets. Our aim was to get well to one side of a
cluster of high, bare peaks, and then to cross them
and come back to camp; we reckoned that the
trip would take three days.

All the first day we tramped through dense

The White-Goat . 137

woods and across and around steep mountain
spurs. We caught glimpses of two or three deer
and a couple of elk, all does or fawns, however,
which we made no effort to molest. Late in the
afternoon we stumbled across a family of spruce
grouse, which furnished us material for both sup-
per and breakfast. The mountain-men call this
bird the fool-hen; and most certainly it deserves
the name. The members of this particular flock,
consisting of a hen and her three-parts grown
chickens, acted with a stupidity unwonted even
for their kind. They were feeding on the ground
among some young spruce, and on our approach
flew up and perched in the branches four or five
feet above our heads. There they stayed, utter-
ing a low, complaining whistle, and showed not
the slightest suspicion when we came underneath
them with long sticks and knocked four off their
perches — for we did not wish to alarm any large
game that might be in the neighborhood by firing.
One particular bird was partially saved from my
first blow by the intervening twigs; however, it
merely flew a few yards, and then sat with its bill
open, — having evidently been a little hurt, — until
I came up and knocked it over with a better di-
rected stroke.

Spruce grouse are plentiful in the mountain
forests of the northern Rockies, and, owing to
the ease with which they are killed, they have

138 The Wilderness Hunter

furnished me my usual provender when off on trips
of this kind, where I carried no pack. They are
marvellously tame and stupid. The young birds
are the only ones I have ever killed in this manner
with a stick ; but even a full-plumaged old cock in
September is easily slain with a stone by any one
who is at all a good thrower. A man who has
played much base-ball need never use a gun when
after spruce grouse. They are the smallest of the
grouse kind ; the cock is very handsome, with red
eyebrows and dark glossy plumage. Moreover, he
is as brave as he is stupid and good-looking, and in
the love season becomes fairly crazy ; at such time
he will occasionally make a feint of attacking a
man, strutting, fluttering, and ruffling his feathers.
The flesh of the spruce grouse is not so good as
that of his ruffed and blue kinsfolk ; and in winter,
when he feeds on spruce buds, it is ill tasting. I
have never been able to understand why closely
allied species, under apparently the same sur-
roundings, should differ so radically in such im-
portant traits as wariness and capacity to escape
from foes. Yet the spruce grouse in this respect
shows the most marked contrast to the blue grouse
and the ruffed grouse. Of course, all three kinds
vary greatly in their behavior, accordingly as they
do or do not live in localities where they have
been free from man's persecutions. The ruffed
grouse, a very wary game bird in all old-settled

The White-Goat 139

regions, is often absurdly tame in the wilderness ;
and, under persecution, even the spruce grouse
gains some little wisdom ; but the latter never be-
comes as wary as the former, and under no cir-
cumstances is it possible to outwit the niffed
grouse by such clumsy means as serve for his
simple-minded brother. There is a similar differ-
ence between the sage-fowl and prairie-fowl, in fa-
vor of the latter. It is odd that the largest and the
smallest kinds of grouse found in the United States
should be the tamest ; and also the least savory.

After tramping all day through the forest, at
nightfall we camped in its upper edge, just at the
foot of the steep rock walls of the mountain. We
chose a sheltered spot, where the small spruce
grew thick, and there was much dead timber ; and
as the logs, though long, were of little girth, we
speedily dragged together a number sufficient to
keep the fire blazing all night. Having drunk our
full at a brook we cut two forked willow sticks, and
then each plucked a grouse, split it, thrust the
willow-fork into it, and roasted it before the fire.
Besides this, we had salt and bread; moreover,
we were hungry and healthily tired ; so the supper
seemed, and was, delicious. Then we turned up
the collars of our jackets, and lay down, to pass
the night in broken slumber; each time the fire
died down the chill waked us, and we rose to feed
it with fresh logs.

HO The Wilderness Hunter

At dawn we rose, and cooked and ate the two
remaining grouse. Then we turned our faces
upwards, and passed a day of severe toil in chmb-
ing over the crags. Mountaineering is very hard
work; and when we got high among the peaks,
where snow filled the rifts, the thinness of the air
forced me to stop for breath every few hundred
yards of the ascent. We found much sign of
white-goats, but in spite of steady work and in-
cessant careful scanning of the rocks, we did not
see our quarry until early in the afternoon.

We had clambered up one side of a steep saddle
of naked rock, some of the scarped ledges being
difficult, and indeed dangerous, of ascent. From
the top of the saddle a careful scrutiny of the
neighboring peaks failed to reveal any game, and
we began to go down the other side. The moun-
tain fell away in a succession of low cliffs, and we
had to move with the utmost caution. In letting
ourselves down from ledge to ledge one would hold
the guns until the other got safe footing, and then
pass them down to him. In many places we had
to work our way along the cracks in the faces of
the frost-riven rocks. At last, just as we reached
a little smooth shoulder, my companion said,
pointing down beneath us: ''Look at the white-
goat!"

A moment or two passed before I got my eyes on
it. We were looking down into a basin-like valley,

The White-Goat 141

surrounded by high mountain chains. At one end
of the basin was a low pass, where the ridge was
cut up with the zigzag trails made by the countless
herds of game which had travelled it for many
generations. At the other end was a dark gorge,
through which a stream foamed. The floor of the
basin was bright emerald green, dotted with
darker bands where belts of fir trees grew ; and in
its middle lay a little lake.

At last I caught sight of the goat, feeding on a
terrace rather over a hundred and twenty-five
yards below me. I promptly fired, but overshot.
The goat merely gave a few jumps and stopped.
My second bullet went through its lungs, but fear-
ful lest it might escape to some inaccessible cleft or
ledge I fired again, missing ; and yet again, break-
ing its back. Down it went, and the next mo-
ment began to roll over and over, from ledge to
ledge. I greatly feared it would break its horns ;
an annoying and oft-recurring incident of white-
goat shooting, where the nature of the ground is
such that the dead quarry often falls hundreds of
feet, its body being torn to ribbons by the sharp
crags. However, in this case the goat speedily
lodged unharmed in a little dwarf evergreen.

Hardly had I fired my fourth shot when my
companion again exclaimed : " Look at the white-
goats ! look at the white-goats ! ' ' Glancing in the
direction in which he pointed I speedily made out

142 The Wilderness Hunter

four more goats standing in a bunch rather less
than a hundred yards off, to one side of my former
Hne of fire. They were all looking up at me. They
stood on a slab of white rock, with which the color
of their fleece harmonized well; and their black
horns, muzzles, eyes, and hoofs looked like dark
dots on a light-colored surface, so that it took me
more than one glance to determine what they
were. White-goat invariably run up hill when
alarmed, their one idea seeming to be to escape
danger by getting above it ; for their brute foes
are able to overmatch them on anything like level
ground, but are helpless against them among
the crags. Almost as soon as I saw them
these four started up the mountain, nearly in
my direction, while I clambered down and across
to meet them. They halted at the foot of a
cliff, and I at the top, being unable to see them ;
but in another moment they came bounding
and cantering up the sheer rocks, not moving
quickly, but traversing the most seemingly im-
possible places by main strength and sure-footed-
ness. As they broke by me, some thirty yards off,
I fired two shots at the rearmost, an old buck,
somewhat smaller than the one I had just killed ;
and he rolled down the mountain dead. Two of
the others, a yearling and a kid, showed more
alarm than their elders, and ran off at a brisk pace.
The remaining one, an old she, went off a hundred

The White-Goat 143

yards, and then deliberately stopped and turned
round to gaze at us for a couple of minutes ! Verily,
the white-goat is the fool-hen among beasts of the
chase.

Having skinned and cut off the heads we walked
rapidly onwards, slanting down the mountain-side,
and then over and down the pass of the game
trails ; for it was growing late, and we wished to
get well down among the timber before nightfall.
On the way an eagle came soaring overhead,
and I shot at it twice without success. Having
once killed an eagle on the wing with a rifle, I
always have a lurking hope that sometimes I may
be able to repeat the feat. I revenged myself for
the miss by knocking a large blue goshawk out of
the top of a blasted spruce, where it was sitting in
lazy confidence, its crop stuffed with rabbit and
grouse.

A couple of hours' hard walking brought us
down to timber; just before dusk we reached a
favorable camping spot in the forest, beside a
brook, with plenty of dead trees for the night fire.
Moreover, the spot fortunately yielded us our sup-
per, too, in the shape of a flock of young spruce
grouse, of which we shot off the heads of a couple.
Immediately afterwards I ought to have procured
our breakfast, for a cock of the same kind sud-
denly flew down nearby ; but it was getting dark,
I missed with the first shot, and with the second

144 The Wilderness Hunter

must have merely creased the neck, for though the
tough old bird dropped, it fluttered and ran off
among the underbrush and escaped.

We broiled our two grouse before our fire,
dragged plenty of logs into a heap beside it, and
then lay down to sleep fitfully, an hour or so at a
time, throughout the night. We were continually
wakened by the cold, when we had to rise and feed
the flames. In the early morning we again
started, walking for some time along the fresh
trail made by a large band of elk, cows and calves.
We thought we knew exactly the trend and outlet
of the valley in which we were, and that therefore
we could tell where the camp was ; but, as so often
happens in the wilderness, we had not reckoned
aright, having passed over one mountain spur too
many, and entered the ravines of an entirely dif-
ferent watercourse-system. In consequence, we
became entangled in a network of hills and valleys,
making circle after circle to find our bearings ; and
we only reached camp after twelve hours' tire-
some tramp without food.

On another occasion I shot a white-goat while it
was in a very curious and characteristic attitude.
I was hunting, again with an old mountain-man
as my sole companion, among the high mountains
of the Kootenai country, near the border of Mon-
tana and British Columbia. We had left our main
camp, pitched by the brink of the river, and were

The White-Goat 145

struggling wearily on foot through the tangled
forest and over the precipitous mountains, carry-
ing on our backs light packs, consisting of a little
food and two or three indispensable utensils,
wrapped in our blankets. One day we came to
the foot of a great chain of bare rocks, and climbed
laboriously to its crest, up cliff after cliff, some of
which were almost perpendicular. Swarming
round certain of the rock shoulders, crossing an
occasional sheer chasm, and in many places cling-
ing to steep, smooth walls by but slight holds, we
reached the top. The climbing at such a height
was excessively fatiguing; moreover, it was in
places difficult and even dangerous. Of course, it
was not to be compared to the ascent of towering,
glacier-bearing peaks, such as those of the Selkirks
and Alaska, where climbers must be roped to one
another and carry ice-axes.

Once at the top we walked very cautiously,
being careful not to show ourselves against the sky-
line, and scanning the mountain-sides through our
glasses. At last we made out three goats, grazing
unconcernedly on a narrow grassy terrace, which
sloped abruptly to the brink of a high precipice.
They were not very far off, and there was a little
rock spur above them which offered good cover for
a stalk; but we had to crawl so slowly, partly to
avoid falling, and partly to avoid detaching loose
rocks, that it was nearly an hour before we got in

VOL. I. — 10

14^ The Wilderness Hunter

a favorable position above them, and some seventy
yards off. The frost-disintegrated mountains in
which they Hve are always sending down showers
of detached stones, so that the goats are not very
sensitive to this noise; still, they sometimes pay
instantaneous heed to it, especially if the sound is
repeated.

When I peeped over the little ledge of rock,
shoving my rifle carefully ahead of me, I found
that the goats had finished feeding and were pre-
paring to leave the slope. The old billy saw me at
once, but evidently could not quite make me out.
Thereupon, gazing intently at me, he rose gravely
on his haunches, sitting up almost in the attitude
of a dog when begging. I know no other homed
animal that ever takes this position.

As I fired he rolled backwards, slipped down the
grassy slope, and tumbled over the brink of the
cliff, while the other two, a she and a kid, after a
moment's panic-struck pause, and a bewildered
rush in the wrong direction, made off up a little
rocky gully, and were out of sight in a moment.
To my chagrin, when I finally reached the carcass,
after a tedious and circuitous climb to the foot of
the cliff, I found both horns broken off.

It was late in the afternoon, and we clambered
down to the border of a little marshy alpine lake,
which we reached in an hour or so. Here we
made our camp, about sunset, in a grove of stunted

The White-Goat 147

spruces, which furnished plenty of dead timber
for the fire. There were many white-goat trails
leading to this lake, and from the slide rock round-
about we heard the shrill whistling of hoary rock-
woodchucks, and the querulous notes of the little
conies — two of the sounds most familiar to the
white-goat hunter. These conies had gathered
heaps of dried plants, and had stowed them care-
fully away for winter use in the cracks between the
rocks.

While descending the mountain we came on a
little pack of snow grouse or mountain ptarmigan,
birds which, save in winter, are always found
above timber line. They were tame and fearless,
though hard to make out as they ran among the
rocks, cackling noisily, with their tails cocked
aloft; and we had no difficulty in killing four,
which gave us a good breakfast and supper. Old
white-goats are intolerably musky in flavor, there
being a very large musk-pod between the horn and
ear. The kids are eatable, but of course are rarely
killed ; the shot being usually taken at the animal
with best horns — and the shes and young of any
game should only be killed when there is a real
necessity.

These two htints may be taken as samples of
most expeditions after white-goat. There are
places where the goats live in mountains close to
bodies of water, either ocean fiords or large lakes ;

hS The Wilderness Hunter

and in such places canoes can be used, to the
greatly increased comfort and lessened labor of
the hunters. In other places, where the moun-
tains are low and the goats spend all the year in
the timber, a pack-train can be taken right up to
the hunting-grotmds. But generally one must go
on foot, carrying everything on one's back, and at
night lying out in the open or under a brush lean-
.to; meanwhile living on spruce grouse and ptar-
migan, with an occasional meal of trout, and in
times of scarcity squirrels, or anything else. Such
a trip entails severe fatigue and not a little hard-
ship. The actual hunting, also, implies difficult
and laborious climbing, for the goats live by choice
among the highest and most inaccessible moun-
tains; though where they are found, as they
sometimes are, in comparatively low forest-clad
ranges, I have occasionally killed them with little
trouble by lying in wait beside the well-trodden
game trails they make in the timber.

In any event the hard work is to get up to the
grounds where the game is found. Once the ani-
mals are spied there is but little call for the craft
of the still-hunter in approaching them. Of all
American game the white-goat is the least wary
and most stupid. In places where it is much
hunted it of course gradually grows wilder and
becomes difficult to approach and kill ; and much
of its silly tameness is doubtless due to the in-

The White-Goat 149

accessible nature of its haunts, which renders it
ordinarily free from molestation; but aside from
this it certainly seems as if it was naturally less
wary than either deer or mountain sheep. The
great point is to get above it. All its foes live in
the valleys, and while it is in the mountains, if
they strive to approach it at all, they must do so
from below. It is in consequence always on the
watch for danger from beneath; but it is easily
approached from above, and then, as it generally
tries to escape by running up hill, the hunter is
very apt to get a shot.

Its chase is thus laborious rather than exciting ;
and to my mind it is less attractive than is the
pursuit of most of our other game. Yet it has an
attraction of its own after all ; while the grandeur
of the scenery amid which it must be carried on,
the freedom and hardihood of the life and the
pleasure of watching the queer habits of the game,
all combine to add to the hunter's enjoyment.

White-goats are self-confident, pugnacious be-
ings. An old billy, if he discovers the presence of
a foe without being quite sure what it is, often re-
fuses to take flight, but walks around, stamping,
and shaking his head. The needle-pointed black
horns are alike in both sexes, save that the males'
are a trifle thicker; and they are most effective
weapons when wielded by the muscular neck of a
resolute and wicked old goat. They wound like

150 The Wilderness Hunter

stilettos, and their bearer is in consequence a
much more formidable foe in a hand-to-hand
struggle than either a branching-antlered deer or
a mountain ram, with his great battering head.
The goat does not butt; he thrusts. If he can
cover his back by a tree trunk or boulder he can
stand off most carnivorous animals, no larger than
he is.

Though awkward in movement, and lacking all
semblance of lightness or agility, goats are excel-
lent climbers. One of their queer traits is their
way of getting their fore hoofs on a slight ledge,
and then drawing or lifting their bodies up by
simple muscular exertion, stretching out their
elbows, much as a man would. They do a good
deal of their climbing by strength and command
over their muscles ; although they are also capable
of making astonishing bounds. If a cliff surface
has the least slope, and shows any inequalities or
roughness whatever, goats can go up and down it
with ease. With their short, stout legs, and large,
sharp-edged hoofs they clamber well over ice,
passing and repassing the mountains at a time
when no man would so much as crawl over them.
They bear extreme cold with indifference, but are
intolerant of much heat ; even when the weather is
cool they are apt to take their noontide rest in
caves; I have seen them solemnly retiring, for
this purpose, to great rents in the rocks at a time

The White-Goat 151

when my own teeth chattered because of the icy
wind.

They go in small flocks; sometimes in pairs
or little family parties. After the rut the bucks
often herd by themselves, or go off alone, while
the young and the shes keep together throughout
the winter and the spring. The young are gen-
erally brought forth above timber line, or at its
uppermost edge, save, of course, in those places
where the goats live among mountains wooded to
the top. Throughout the summer they graze on
the short mountain plants which in many places
form regular mats above timber line; the deep
winter snows drive them low down in the wooded
valleys, and force them to subsist by browsing.
They are so strong that they plough their way
readily through deep drifts; and a flock of goats
at this season, when their white coat is very long
and thick, if seen waddling off through the snow,
have a comical likeness to so many diminutive
polar bears. Of course they could easily be run
down in the snow by a man on snow-shoes, in the
plain; but on a mountain-side there are always
bare rocks and cliff shoulders, glassy with winter
ice, which give either goats or sheep an advantage
over their snowshoe-bearing foes that deer and
elk lack. Whenever the goats pass the winter in
woodland they leave plenty of sign in the shape of
patches of wool clinging to all the sharp twigs and

152 The Wilderness Hunter

branches against which they have brushed. In
the spring they often form the habit of drinking at
certain low pools, to which they beat deep paths ;
and at this season, and to a less extent in the sum-
mer and fall, they are very fond of frequenting
mineral licks. At any such lick the ground is
tramped bare of vegetation, and is filled with pits
and hollows, actually dug by the tongues of in-
numerable generations of animals ; while the game
paths lead from them in a dozen directions.

In spite of the white-goat's pugnacity, its clum-
siness renders it no very difficult prey when taken
unawares by either wolf or cougar, its two chief
enemies. They cannot often catch it when it is
above timber line; but it is always in sore peril
from them when it ventures into the forest. Bears,
also, prey upon it in the early spring; and one
midwinter my friend Willis found a wolverine eat-
ing a goat which it had killed in a snowdrift at the
foot of a cliff. The savage little beast growled
and showed fight when he came near the body.
Eagles are great enemies of the young kids, as they
are of the young lambs of the bighorns.

The white-goat is the only game beast of Amer-
ica which has not decreased in numbers since the
arrival of the white man. Although in certain
localities it is now decreasing, yet, taken as a
whole, it is probably quite as plentiful now as it
was fifty years back ; for in the early part of the

The White-Goat 153

present century there were Indian tribes who
hunted it perseveringly to make the skins into
robes, whereas now they get blankets from the
traders and no longer persecute the goats. The
early trappers and mountain-men knew but little
of the animal. Whether they were after beaver,
or were hunting big game, or were merely ex-
ploring, they kept to the valleys ; there was no in-
ducement for them to climb to the tops of the
mountains; so it resulted that there was no ani-
mal with which the old hunters were so un-
familiar as with the white-goat. The professional
hunters of to-day likewise bother it but little;
they do not care to undergo severe toil for an ani-
mal with worthless flesh and a hide of little value —
for it is only in the late fall and winter that the
long hair and fine wool give the robe any beauty.

So the quaint, sturdy, musky beasts, with their
queer and awkward ways, their boldness and their
stupidity, with their white coats and big black
hoofs, black muzzles, and sharp, gently-curved,
span-long black horns, have held their own well
among the high mountains that they love. In the
Rockies and the Coast ranges they abound from
Alaska south to Montana, Idaho, and Washington ;
and here and there isolated colonies are found
among the high mountains to the southward, in
Wyoming, Colorado, even in New Mexico, and,
strangest of all, in one or two spots among the

154 The Wilderness Hunter

barren coast raountains of southern California.
Long after the elk has followed the buffalo to the
happy hunting-grounds the white-goat will flourish
among the towering and glacier-riven peaks, and,
grown wary with succeeding generations, will fur-
nish splendid sport to those hunters who are both
good riflemen and hardy cragsmen.

CHAPTER VIII

HUNTING IN THE SELKIRKS ; THE CARIBOU

IN September, 1888, I was camped on the shores
of Kootenai Lake, having with me, as com-
panions, John WilHs and an impassive-look-
ing Indian named Ammal. Coming across through
the dense coniferous forests of northern Idaho we
had struck the Kootenai River. Then we went
down with the current as it wound in half circles
through a long alluvial valley of mixed marsh and
woodland, hemmed in by lofty mountains. The
lake itself, when we reached it, stretched straight
away like a great fiord, a hundred miles long and
about three in breadth. The frowning and rugged
Selkirks came down sheer to the water's edge. So
straight were the rock walls that it was difficult
for us to land with our batteau, save at the places
where the rapid mountain torrents entered the
lake. As these streams of swift water broke from
their narrow gorges they made little deltas of level
ground, with beaches of fine white sand ; and the
stream banks were edged with cottonwood and
poplar, their shimmering foliage relieving the
sombre coloring of the evergreen forest.

155

15^ The Wilderness Hunter

Close to such a brook, from which we drew
strings of large silver trout, our tent was pitched,
just within the forest. From between the trunks
of two gnarled, wind-beaten trees, a pine and a Cot-
tonwood, we looked out across the lake. The little
bay in our front, in which we bathed and swam,
was sometimes glassily calm; and again heavy
wind-squalls arose, and the surf beat strongly
on the beach where our boat was drawn up. Now
and then great checker-back loons drifted buoy-
antly by, stopping with bold curiosity to peer at
the white tent gleaming between the tree-trunks,
and at the smoke curling above their tops; and
they called to one another, both at dawn and in
the daytime, with shrieks of unearthly laughter.
Troops of noisy, parti-colored Clarke crows circled
over the tree-tops or hung from among the pine
cones ; jays and chickadees came round camp, and
woodpeckers hammered lustily in the dead timber.
Two or three times parties of Indians passed down
the lake, in strangely shaped bark canoes, with
peaked, projecting prows and sterns ; craft utterly
unlike the graceful, feather-floating birches so be-
loved by both the red and the white woodsmen of
the northeast. Once a couple of white men, in a
dug-out or pirogue made out of a cottonwood log,
stopped to get lunch. They were mining pros-
pectors, French-Canadians by birth, but beaten
into the usual frontier-mining stamp ; doomed to

Hunting in the Selkirks 157

wander their lives long, ever hoping, in the quest
for metal wealth.

With these exceptions there was nothing to
break the silent loneliness of the great lake.
Shrouded as we were in the dense forest, and at
the foot of the first steep hills, we could see nothing
of the country on the side where we were camped ;
but across the water the immense mountain masses
stretched away from our vision, range upon range,
until they turned to a glittering throng of ice-
peaks and snow-fields, the feeding beds of glaciers.
Between the lake and the snow range were chains
of gray rock-peaks, and the mountain-sides and
valleys were covered by the primeval forest. The
woods were on fire across the lake from our camp,
burning steadily. At night the scene was very
grand, as the fire worked slowly across the moun-
tain-sides in immense zigzags of quivering red;
while at times isolated pines of unusual size kin-
dled, and flamed for hours, like the torches of a
giant. Finally the smoke grew so thick as to
screen from our view the grand landscape op-
posite.

We had come down from a week's fruitless hunt-
ing in the mountains ; a week of excessive toil, in
a country where we saw no game — for in our ig-
norance we had wasted time, not going straight
back to the high ranges, from which the game had
not yet descended. After three or four days of

158 The Wilderness Hunter

rest, and of feasting on trout — a welcome relief to
the monotony of frying-pan bread and coarse
salt pork — we were ready for another trial; and
early one morning we made the start. Having to
pack everything for a fortnight's use on our backs,
through an excessively rough country, we, of
course, travelled as light as possible, leaving al-
most all we had with the tent and boat. Each
took his own blanket ; and among us we carried a
frying-pan, a teapot, flour, pork, salt, tea, and
matches. I also took a jacket, a spare pair of
socks, some handkerchiefs, and my washing kit.
Fifty cartridges in my belt completed my outfit.

We walked in single file, as is necessary in thick
woods. The white hunter led and I followed,
each with rifle on shoulder and pack on back.
Ammdl, the Indian, pigeon-toed along behind,
carrying his pack, not as we did ours, but by help
of a forehead- band, which he sometimes shifted
across his breast. The travelling through the
tangled, brush-choked forest, and along the boul-
der-strewn and precipitous mountain-sides, was
inconceivably rough and difficult. In places we
followed the valley, and when this became im-
possible we struck across the spurs. Every step
was severe toil. Now we walked through deep
moss and rotting mould, every few feet clamber-
ing over huge trunks ; again we pushed through a
stiff jungle of bushes and tall, prickly plants —

Hunting in the Selkirks 159

called "devil's clubs," — which stung our hands
and faces. Up the almost perpendicular hill-
sides we in many places went practically on all
fours, forcing our way over the rocks and through
the dense thickets of laurels or young spruce.
Where there were windfalls or great stretches of
burnt forest, black and barren wastes, we balanced
and leaped from log to log, sometimes twenty or
thirty feet above the ground; and when such a
stretch was on a steep hillside, and especially if
the logs were enveloped in a thick second growth
of small evergreens, the footing was very insecure
and the danger from a fall considerable. Our
packs added greatly to our labor, catching on the
snags and stubs; and where a grove of thick-
growing young spruces or balsams had been
burned, the stiff and brittle twigs pricked like so
much coral. Most difficult of all were the dry
watercourses, choked with alders, where the in-
tertwined tangle of tough stems formed an almost
literally impenetrable barrier to our progress.
Nearly every movement — leaping, climbing, swing-
ing one's self up with one's hands, bursting
through stiff bushes, plunging into and out of
bogs — was one of strain and exertion ; the fatigue
was tremendous and steadily continued, so that
in an hour every particle of clothing I had on was
wringing wet with sweat.

At noon we halted beside a little brook for a bite

i6o The Wilderness Hunter

of lunch — a chunk of cold frying-pan bread, which
was all we had.

While at lunch I made a capture. I was sitting
on a great stone by the edge of the brook, idly
gazing at a water- wren which had come up from a
short flight — I can call it nothing else — under-
neath the water, and was singing sweetly from a
spray-splashed log. Suddenly a small animal
swam across the little pool at my feet. It was less
in size than a mouse, and as it paddled rapidly
underneath the water its body seemed flattened
like a disc, and was spangled with tiny bubbles,
like specks of silver. It was a water-shrew, a rare
little beast. I sat motionless and watched both
the shrew and the water- wren — water-ousel, as it
should rightly be named. The latter, emboldened
by my quiet, presently flew by me to a little rapids
close at hand, lighting on a round stone, and then
slipping unconcernedly into the swift water. Anon
he emerged, stood on another stone, and trilled a
few bars, though it was late in the season for sing-
ing; and then dove again into the stream. I
gazed at him eagerly; for this strange, pretty
water-thrush is to me one of the most attractive
and interesting birds to be found in the gorges of
the great Rockies. Its haunts are romantically
beautiful, for it always dwells beside and in the
swift-flowing mountain brooks ; it has a singularly
sweet song ; and its ways render it a marked bird

Hunting in the Selkirks i6i

at once, for though looking much like a sober-
colored, ordinary woodland thrush, it spends half
its time under the water, walking along the bot-
tom, swimming and diving, and flitting through
as well as over the cataracts.

In a minute or two the shrew caught my eye
again. It got into a little shallow eddy and
caught a minute fish, which it carried to a half-
sunken stone and greedily devoured, tugging
voraciously at it as it held it down with its paws.
Then its evil genius drove it into a small puddle
alongside the brook, where I instantly pounced on
and slew it ; for I knew a friend in the Smithsonian
at Washington who would have coveted it greatly.
It was a soft, pretty creature, dark above, snow-
white below, with a very long tail. I turned the
skin inside out and put a bent twig in, that it
might dry ; while Ammal, who had been intensely
interested in the chase and capture, meditatively
shook his head and said " wagh," unable to fathom
the white man's medicine. However, my labor
came to nought, for that evening I laid the skin
out on a log, Ammal threw the log into the fire,
and that was the end of the shrew.

When this interlude was over we resumed our
march, toiling silently onwards through the wild
and rugged country. Towards evening the valley
widened a little, and we were able to walk in the
bottoms, which much lightened our labor. The

VOL. I. — II.

i62 The Wilderness Hunter

hunter, for greater ease, had tied the thongs of
his heavy pack across his breast, so that he could
not use his rifle ; but my pack was lighter, and I
carried it in a manner that would not interfere
with my shooting, lest we should come unawares
on game.

It was well that I did so. An hour or two be-
fore sunset we were travelling, as usual, in Indian
file, beside the stream, through an open wood of
great hemlock trees. There was no breeze, and
we made no sound as we marched, for our feet
sunk noiselessly into the deep sponge of moss,
while the incessant dashing of the torrent, churn-
ing among the stones, would have drowned a far
louder advance.

Suddenly the hunter, who was leading, dropped
down in his tracks, pointing forward; and some
fifty feet beyond I saw the head and shoulders of
a bear as he rose to make a sweep at some berries.
He was in a hollow where a tall, rank, prickly
plant, with broad leaves, grew luxuriantly; and
he was gathering its red berries, rising on his hind
legs and sweeping them down into his mouth with
his paw, and was much too intent on his work to
notice us, for his head was pointed the other way.
The moment he rose again I fired, meaning to
shoot through the shoulders, but instead, in the
hurry, taking him in the neck. Down he went,
but whether hurt or not we could not see, for the

Hunting in the Selkirks 163

second he was on all fours lie was no longer visible.
Rather to my surprise he uttered no sound — for
bear when hit or when charging often make a great
noise — so I raced forward to the edge of the hollow,
the hunter close behind me, while Ammal danced
about in the rear, very much excited, as Indians
always are in the presence of big game. The in-
stant we reached the hollow and looked down into
it from the low bank on which we stood we saw by
the swaying of the tall plants that the bear was
coming our way. The hunter was standing some
ten feet distant, a hemlock trunk being between
us; and the next moment the bear sprang clean
up the bank the other side of the hemlock, and
almost within arm's length of my companion. I
do not think he had intended to charge; he was
probably confused by the bullet through his neck,
and had by chance blundered out of the hollow in
our direction; but when he saw the hunter so
close he turned for him, his hair bristling and his
teeth showing. The man had no cartridge in his
weapon, and with his pack on could not have
used it anyhow ; and for a moment it looked as if
he stood a fair chance of being hurt, though it is
not likely that the bear would have done more
than knock him down with his powerful fore paw,
or perchance give him a single bite in passing.
However, as the beast sprang out of the hollow
he poised for a second on the edge of the bank to

1 64 The Wilderness Hunter

recover his balance, giving me a beautiful shot, as
he stood sideways to me; the bullet struck be-
tween the eye and ear, and he fell as if hit with a
pole-axe.

Immediately the Indian began jumping about
the body, uttering wild yells, his usually impas-
sive face lit up with excitement, while the hunter
and I stood at rest, leaning on our rifles, and
laughing. It was a strange scene, the dead bear
lying in the shade of the giant hemlocks, while
the fantastic-looking savage danced round him
with shrill whoops, and the tall frontiersman
looked qtiietly on.

Our prize was a large black bear, with two curi-
ous brown streaks down his back, one on each side
the spine. We skinned him and camped by the
carcass, as it was growing late. To take the chill
oif the evening air we built a huge fire, the logs
roaring and crackling. To one side of it we made
our beds — of balsam and hemlock boughs; we
did not build a brush lean-to, because the night
seemed likely to be clear. Then we supped on
sugarless tea, frying-pan bread, and quantities of
bear meat, fried or roasted — and how very good
it tasted only those know who have gone through
much hardship and some little hunger, and have
worked violently for several days without flesh
food. After eating our fill we stretched ourselves
around the fire ; the leaping sheets of flame lit the

The Caribou 165

tree-trunks round about, causing them to start
out against the cavernous blackness beyond, and
reddened the interlacing branches that formed a
canopy overhead. The Indian sat on his haunches
gazing steadily and silently into the pile of blazing
logs, while the white hunter and I talked together.

The morning after killing Bruin, we again took
up our march, heading up stream, that we might
go to its sources amidst the mountains, where the
snow-fields fed its springs. It was two full days'
journey thither, but we took much longer to make
it, as we kept halting to hunt the adjoining moun-
tains. On such occasions Ammal was left as camp
guard, while the white hunter and I would start
by daybreak and return at dark utterly worn out
by the excessive fatigue. We knew nothing of
caribou, nor where to hunt for them; and we had
been told that thus early in the season they were
above tree limit on the mountain-sides. Accord-
ingly we would climb up to the limits of the for-
ests, but never found a caribou trail ; and once or
twice we went on to the summits of the crag-peaks,
and across the deep snow-fields in the passes.
There were plenty of white-goats, however, their
trails being broad paths, especially at one spot
where they led down to a lick in the valley ; round
the lick, for a space of many yards, the ground
was trampled as if in a sheepfold.

The moimtains were very steep, and the climbing

i66 The Wilderness Hunter

was in places dangerous, when we were above
the timber and had to make our way along the
jagged knife-crests and across the faces of the
cliffs ; while our hearts beat as if about to burst in
the high, thin air. In walking over rough but not
dangerous ground — across slides or in thick tim-
ber— my companion was far more skilful than I
was; but rather to my surprise I proved to be
nearly as good as he when we came to the really
dangerous places, where we had to go slowly, and
let one another down from ledge to ledge, or crawl
by narrow cracks across the rock walls.

The view from the summits was magnificent,
and I never tired of gazing at it. Sometimes the
sky was a dome of blue crystal, and mountain,
lake, and valley lay spread in startling clearness
at our very feet ; and again snow-peak and rock-
peak were thrust up like islands through a sea of
billowy clouds. At the feet of the topmost peaks,
just above the edge of the forest, were marshy al-
pine valleys, the boggy ground soaked with water,
and small bushes or stunted trees fringing the icy
lakes. In the stony mountain-sides surrounding
these lakes there were hoary woodchucks, and
conies. The former resembled in their habits the
alpine marmot, rather than our own common east-
em woodchuck. They lived alone or in couples
among the rocks, their gray color often making
them difficult to see as they crouched at the

The Caribou 167

mouths of their burrows, or sat bolt upright ; and
as an alarm note they uttered a loud piercing
whistle, a strong contrast to the querulous, plain-
tive *'p-a-a-y" of the timid conies. These like-
wise loved to dwell where the stones and slabs of
rock were heaped on one another ; though so timid,
they were not nearly as wary as the woodchucks.
If we stood quite still the little brown creatures
would venture away from their holes and hop
softly over the rocks as if we were not present.

The white-goats were too musky to eat, and we
saw nothing else to shoot ; so we speedily became
reduced to tea, and to bread baked in the frying-
pan, save every now and then for a feast on
the luscious mountain blueberries. This rather
meagre diet, coupled with incessant fatigue and
exertion, made us fairly long for meat food; and
we fell off in flesh, though of course in so short a
time we did not suffer in either health or strength.
Fortunately, the nights were too cool for mos-
quitoes ; but once or twice in the afternoons, while
descending the lower slopes of the mountains, we
were much bothered by swarms of gnats; they
worried us greatly, usually attacking us at a time
when we had to go fast in order to reach camp be-
fore dark, while the roughness of the ground
forced us to use both hands in climbing, and thus
forbade us to shield our faces from^ our tiny tor-
mentors. Our chief luxury was, at the end of the

i68 The Wilderness Hunter

day, when footsore and weary, to cast aside our
sweat-drenched clothes and plunge into the icy
mountain torrent for a moment's bath that fresh-
ened us as if by magic. The nights were generally
pleasant, and we slept soundly on our beds of
balsam boughs, but once or twice there were
sharp frosts, and it was so cold that the hunter and
I huddled together for warmth, and kept the fires
going till morning. One day, when we were on
the march, it rained heavily, and we were soaked
through and stiff and chilly when we pitched
camp ; but we speedily built a great brush lean-to,
made a roaring fire in front, and grew once more
to warmth and comfort as we sat under our steam-
ing shelter. The only discomfort we really minded
was an occasional night in wet blankets.

In the evening the Indian and the white hunter
played interminable games of seven-up with a
greasy pack of cards. In the course of his varied
life the hunter had been a professional gambler;
and he could have easily won all the Indian's
money, the more speedily inasmuch as the un-
tutored red man was always attempting to cheat,
and was thus giving his far more skilful opponent
a certain right to try some similar deviltry in re-
turn. However, it was distinctly understood that
there should be no gambling, for I did not wish
Ammal to lose all his wages while in my employ ;
and the white man stood loyally by his agreement.

The Caribou 169

Ammdl's people, just before I engaged him, had
been visited by their brethren, the Upper Koote-
nais, and in a series of gambhng matches had lost
about all their belongings.

Ammal himself was one of the Lower Kootenais ;
I had hired him for the trip, as the Indians west of
the Rockies, unlike their kinsmen of the plains,
often prove hard and willing workers. His know-
ledge of English was almost nil; and our very-
scanty conversation was carried on in the Chinook
jargon, universally employed between the moun-
tains and the Pacific. Apparently, he had three
names: for he assured us that his '' Boston" (i. e.,
American) name was Ammal; his ''Siwash" {i. e.,
Indian) name was Appak; and that the priest
called him Abel — for the Lower Kootenais are
nominally Catholics. Whatever his name he was
a good Indian, as Indians go. I often tried to
talk with him about game and hunting, but we
understood each other too little to exchange more
than the most rudimentary ideas. His face bright-
ened one night when I happened to tell him of my
baby boys at home ; he must have been an affec-
tionate father in his way, this dark Ammal, for he
at once proceeded to tell me about his own pa-
poose, who had also seen one snow, and to de-
scribe how the little fellow was old enough to take
one step and then fall down. But he never dis-
played so much vivacity as on one occasion when

I70 The Wilderness Hunter

the white hunter happened to relate to him a
rather gruesome feat of one of their mutual ac-
quaintances, an Upper Kootenai Indian named
Three Coyotes. The latter was a quarrelsome, ad-
venturous Indian, with whom the hunter had once
had a difficulty — *' I had to beat the cuss over the
head with my gun a little," he remarked, paren-
thetically. His last feat had been done in connec-
tion with a number of Chinamen, who had been
working among some placer mines, where the In-
dians came to visit them. Now the astute Chinese
are as fond of gambling as any of the borderers,
white or red, and are very successful, generally
fleecing the Indians unmercifully. Three Coyotes
lost all he possessed to one of the pig-tailed gentry ;
but he apparently took his losses philosophically,
and pleasantly followed the victor round, until the
latter had won all the cash and goods of several
other Indians. Then he suddenly fell on the exile
from the Celestial Empire, slew him, and took all
his plunder, retiring unmolested, as it did not
seem any one's business to avenge a mere China-
man. Ammal was immensely interested in the
tale, and kept recurring to it again and again,
taking two little sticks and making the hunter act
out the whole story. The Kootenais were then
only just beginning to consider the Chinese as
human. They knew they must not kill white
people, and they had their own code of morality

The Caribou 171

among themselves; but when the Chinese first
appeared they evidently thought that there could
not be any especial objection to killing them, if
any reason arose for doing so. I think the hunter
himself sympathized somewhat with this view.

Ammal objected strongly to leaving the neigh-
borhood of the lake. He went the first day's
journey willingly enough, but after that it was in-
creasingly difficult to get him along, and he gradu-
ally grew sulky. For some time we could not find
out the reason; but finally he gave us to under-
stand that he was afraid because up in the high
mountains there were "little bad Indians" who
would kill him if they caught him alone, especially
at night. At first we thought he was speaking of
stray warriors of the Blackfeet tribe ; but it turned
out that he was not thinking of human beings at
all, but of hobgoblins.

Indeed the night sounds of these great stretches
of mountain woodland were very weird and
strange. Though I have often and for long periods
dwelt and hunted in the wilderness, yet I never
before so well understood why the people who live
in lonely forest regions are prone to believe in
elves, wood spirits, and other beings of an unseen
world. Our last camp, whereat we spent several
days, was pitched in a deep valley nearly at the
head of the stream. Our brush shelter stood
among the tall coniferous trees that covered the

172 The Wilderness Hunter

valley bottom ; but the altitude was so great that
the forest extended only a very short distance up
the steep mountain slopes. Beyond, on either
hand, rose walls of gray rock, with snow-beds in
their rifts, and, high above, toward the snow-peaks,
the great white fields dazzled the eyes. The tor-
rent foamed swiftly by but a short distance be-
low the mossy level space on which we had built
our slight weather-shield of pine boughs ; other
streams poured into it, from ravines through which
they leaped down the mountain-sides.

After nightfall, round the camp-fire, or if I
awakened after sleeping a little while, I would
often lie silently for many minutes together, lis-
tening to the noises of the wilderness. At times
the wind moaned harshly through the tops of the
tall pines and hemlocks; at times the branches
were still; but the splashing murmur of the tor-
rent never ceased, and through it came other
sounds — the clatter of huge rocks falling down the
cliffs, the dashing of cataracts in far-off ravines,
the hooting of owls. Again, the breeze would
shift, and bring to my ears the ringing of other
brooks and cataracts and wind-stirred forests, and
perhaps at long intervals the cry of some wild
beast, the crashing of a falling tree, or the faint
rumble of a snow avalanche. If I listened long
enough, it would almost seem that I heard thun-
derous voices laughing and calling to one another,

The Caribou 173

and as if at any moment some shape might stalk
out of the darkness into the dim Hght of the
embers.

Until within a couple of days of turning our
faces back towards the lake we did not come
across any caribou, and saw but a few old signs;
and we began to be fearful lest we should have to
return without getting any, for our shoes had been
cut to ribbons by the sharp rocks, we were almost
out of flour, and therefore had but little to eat.
However, our perseverance was destined to be
rewarded.

The first day after reaching our final camp, we
hunted across a set of spurs and hollows, but saw
nothing living ; yet we came across several bear-
tracks, and in a deep, mossy quagmire, by a spring,
found where a huge silver-tip had wallowed only
the night before.

Next day we started early, determined to take a
long walk and follow the main stream up to its
head, or at least above timber line. The hunter
struck so brisk a pace, plunging through thickets
and leaping from log to log in the slashes of fallen
timber, and from boulder to boulder in crossing
the rock-slides, that I could hardly keep up to him,
struggle as I would, and we each of us got several
ugly tumbles, saving our rifles at the expense of
scraped hands and bruised bodies. We went up
one side of the stream, intending to come down

174 The Wilderness Hunter

the other; for the forest belt was narrow enough
to hunt thoroughly. For two or three hours we
toiled through dense growth, varied by rock-
slides, and once or twice by marshy tracts, where
water oozed and soaked through the mossy hill-
sides, studded rather sparsely with evergreens.
In one of these places we caught a glimpse of
an animal which the track showed to be a wol-
verine.

Then we came to a spur of open hemlock forest ;
and no sooner had we entered it than the hunter
stopped and pointed exultingly to a well-marked
game trail, in which it was easy at a glance to dis-
cern the great round footprints of our quarry. We
hunted carefully over the spur and found several
trails, generally leading down along the ridge ; we
also found a number of beds, some old and some
recent, usually placed where the animal could
keep a lookout for any foe coming up from the
valley. They were merely slight hollows or in-
dentations in the pine-needles ; and, like the game
trails, were placed in localities similar to those
that would be chosen by blacktail deer. The
caribou droppings were also very plentiful; and
there were signs of where they had browsed on the
blueberry bushes, cropping off the berries, and
also apparently of where they had here and there
plucked a mouthful of a peculiar kind of moss, or
cropped off some little mushrooms. But the

The Caribou 175

beasts themselves had evidently left the hemlock
ridge, and we went on.

We were much pleased at finding the sign in
open timber, where the ground was excellent for
still-hunting; for in such thick forest as we had
passed through, it would have been by mere luck
only that we could have approached game.

After a little while the valley became so high
that the large timber ceased, and there were only
occasional groves of spindling evergreens. Be-
yond the edge of the big timber was a large boggy
tract, studded with little pools ; and here again we
found plenty of caribou tracks. A caribou has
an enormous foot, bigger than a cow's, and ad-
mirably adapted for travelling over snow or bogs ;
hence they can pass through places where the long
slender hoofs of moose or deer, or the rounded
hoofs of elk, would let their owners sink at once ;
and they are very difficult to kill by following on
snow-shoes — a method much in vogue among the
brutal game butchers for slaughtering the more
helpless animals. Spreading out his great hoofs,
and bending his legs till he walks almost on the
joints, a caribou will travel swiftly over a crust
through which a moose breaks at every stride, or
through deep snow in which a deer cannot flounder
fifty yards. Usually he trots ; but when pressed
he will spring awkwardly along, leaving tracks in
the snow almost exactly like magnified imprints of

17^ The Wilderness Hunter

those of a great rabbit, the long marks of the two
hind legs forming an angle with each other, while
the fore feet make a large point almost between.

The caribou had wandered all over the bogs and
through the shallow pools, but evidently only at
night or in the dusk, when feeding or in coming to
drink; and we again went on. Soon the timber
disappeared almost entirely, and thick brushwood
took its place ; we were in a high, bare alpine val-
ley, the snow lying in drifts along the sides. In
places there had been enormous rock-slides, en-
tirely filling up the bottom, so that for a quarter
of a mile at a stretch the stream ran underground.
In the rock masses of this alpine valley we, as
usual, saw many conies and hoary woodchucks.

The caribou trails had ceased, and it was evi-
dent that the beasts were not ahead of us in the
barren, treeless recesses between the mountains
of rock and snow ; and we turned back down the
valley, crossing over to the opposite or south side
of the stream. We had already eaten our scanty
lunch, for it was afternoon. For several miles of
hard walking, through thicket, marsh, and rock-
slide, we saw no traces of the game. Then we
reached the forest, which soon widened out, and
crept up the mountain- sides ; and we came to
where another stream entered the one we were
following. A high, steep shoulder between the
two valleys was covered with an open growth of

The Caribou 177

great hemlock timber, and in this we again found
the trails and beds plentiful. There was no
breeze, and after beating through the forest nearly
to its upper edge, we began to go down the ridge,
or point of the shoulder. The comparative free-
dom from brushwood made it easy to walk with-
out noise, and we descended the steep incline with
the utmost care, scanning every object, and using
every caution not to slip on the hemlock needles
nor to strike a stone or break a stick with our feet.
The sign was very fresh, and when still half a mile
or so from the bottom we at last came on three
bull caribou.

Instantly the hunter crouched down, while I
ran noiselessly forward behind the. shelter of a big
hemlock trunk until within fifty yards of the graz-
ing and unconscious quarry. They were feeding
with their heads up hill, but so greedily that they
had not seen us ; and they were rather difficult to
see themselves, for their bodies harmonized well in
color with the brown tree-trunks and lichen-cov-
ered boulders. The largest, a big bull with a good
but by no means extraordinary head, was nearest.
As he stood fronting me with his head down I fired
into his neck, breaking the bone, and he turned
a tremendous back somersault. The other two
halted a second in stunned terror; then one, a
yearling, rushed past us up the valley down which
we had come, while the other, a large bull with

VOL. I. — 12.

178 The Wilderness Hunter

small antlers, crossed right in front of me, at a
canter, his neck thrust out, and his head — so
coarse-looking compared to the delicate outlines
of an elk's — turned towards me. His movements
seemed clumsy and awkward, utterly unlike those
of a deer; but he handled his great hoofs cleverly
enough, and broke into a headlong, rattling gallop
as he went down the hillside, crashing through the
saplings and leaping over the fallen logs. There
was a spur a little beyond, and up this he went at
a swinging trot, halting when he reached the top,
and turning to look at me once more. He was
only a hundred yards away ; and though I had not
intended to shoot him (for his head was not good) ,
the temptation was sore ; and I was glad when, in
another second, the stupid beast turned again and
went off up the valley at a slashing run.

Then we hurried down to examine with pride
and pleasure the dead bull — his massive form,
sleek coat, and fine antlers. It was one of those
moments that repay the hunter for days of toil and
hardship ; that is, if he needs repayment, and does
not find life in the wilderness pleasure enough in
itself.

It was getting late, and if we expected to reach
camp that night it behooved us not to delay; so
we merely halted long enough to dress the caribou,
and take a steak with us — which we did not need,
by the way, for almost immediately we came on a

The Caribou 179

band of spruce grouse, and knocked off the heads
of five with our rifles. The caribou's stomach was
filled with blueberries, and with their leaves, and
with a few small mushrooms also, and some
mouthfuls of moss. We went home very fast, too
much elated to heed scratches and tumbles ; and
just as it was growing so dark that further travel-
ling was impossible we came opposite our camp,
crossed the river on a fallen hemlock, and walked
up to the moody Indian, as he sat crouched by
the fire.

He lost his sullenness when he heard what we
had done; and next day we all went up and
skinned and butchered the caribou, returning to
camp and making ready to start back to the lake
the following morning ; and that night we feasted
royally.

We were off by dawn, the Indian joyfully lead-
ing. Coming up into the mountains he had always
been the rear man of the file ; but now he went first
and struck a pace that, continued all day long, gave
me a little trouble to follow. Each of us carried his
pack ; to the Indian's share fell the caribou skull
and antlers, which he bore on his head. At the
end of the day he confessed to me that it had made
his head *' heap sick" — as well it might. We had
made four short days', or parts of days', march
coming up; for we had stopped to hunt, and
moreover we knew nothing of the country,

i8o The Wilderness Hunter

being probably the first white men in it, while
none of the Indians had ever ventured a long dis-
tance from the lake. Returning, we knew how to
take the shortest route, we were going down hill,
and we walked or trotted very fast; and so we
made the whole distance in twelve hours' travel.
At sunset we came out on the last range of steep
foothills, overlooking the cove where we had
pitched our permanent camp; and from a bare
cliff shoulder we saw our boat on the beach, and
our white tent among the trees, just as we had left
them, while the glassy mirror of the lake reflected
the outlines of the mountains opposite.

Though this was the first caribou I had ever
killed, it was by no means the first I had ever
hunted. Among my earliest hunting experiences,
when a lad, were two fruitless and toilsome expedi-
tions after caribou in the Maine woods. One I
made in the fall, going to the head of the Mun-
sungin River in a pirogue, with one companion.
The water was low, and all the way up we had to
drag the pirogue, wet to our middles, our ankles
sore from slipping on the round stones under the
rushing water, and our muscles aching with fatigue
When we reached the head-waters we found no
caribou sign, and came back without slaying any-
thing larger than an infrequent duck or grouse.

The following February I made a trip on snow-
shoes after the same game, and with the same

The Caribou i8i

result. However, I enjoyed the trip, for the north-
land woods are very beautiful and strange in win-
ter, as indeed they are at all other times — and
it was my first experience on snow-shoes. I used
the ordinary webbed racquets, and as the snow,
though very deep, was only imperfectly crusted, I
found that for a beginner the exercise was labor-
ious in the extreme, speedily discovering that, no
matter how cold it was, while walking through the
windless woods I stood in no need of warm clothing.
But at night, especially when lying out, the cold
was bitter. Our plan was to drive in a sleigh to
some logging camp, where we were always re-
ceived with hearty hospitality, and thence make
htmting trips, in very light marching order,
through the heart of the surrounding forest. The
woods, wrapped in their heavy white mantle, were
still and lifeless. There were a few chickadees and
woodpeckers ; now and then we saw flocks of red-
polls, pine linnets, and large, rosy grosbeaks ; and
once or twice I came across a grouse or white rab-
bit and killed it for supper; but this was nearly
all. Yet, though bird life was scarce, and though
we saw few beasts beyond an occasional porcupine
or squirrel, every morning the snow was dotted
with a network of trails made during the hours of
darkness ; the fine tracery of the footprints of the
little red wood-mouse, the marks which showed
the loping progress of the sable, the V and dot of

1 82 The Wilderness Hunter

the rabbit, the round pads of the lucivee, and
many others. The snow reveals, as nothing else
does, the presence in the forest of the many shy
woodland creatures which lead their lives abroad
only after nightfall. Once we saw a coon, out
early after its winter nap, and following I shot it
in a hollow tree. Another time we came on a
deer, and the frightened beast left its ''yard," a
tangle of beaten paths, or deep furrows. The poor
animal made but slow headway through the pow-
dery snow ; after going thirty or forty rods it sank
exhausted in a deep drift, and lay there in helpless
panic as we walked close by. Very different were
the actions of the only caribou we saw — a fine
beast which had shed its antlers. I merely caught
a glimpse of it as it leaped over a breastwork of
down timbers ; and we never saw it again. Alter-
nately trotting and making a succession of long
jumps, it speedily left us far behind ; with its great
splay-hoofs it could snow-shoe better than we
could. It is among deer the true denizen of the
regions of heavy snowfall; far more so than the
moose. Only under exceptional conditions of
crust-formation is it in any danger from a man on
snow-shoes.

In other ways it is no better able to take care of
itself than moose and deer ; in fact, I doubt whether
its senses are quite as acute, or at least whether it
is as wary and knowing, for under like conditions

The Caribou 183

it is rather easier to still-hunt. In the fall caribou
wander long distances, and are fond of frequenting
the wet barrens, which break the expanse of the
northern forest in tracts of ever-increasing size as
the subarctic regions are neared. At this time
they go in bands, each under the control of a mas-
ter bull, which wages repeated and furious battles
for his harem; and in their ways of life they re-
semble the wapiti more than they do the moose or
deer. They sometimes display a curious bold-
ness, the bulls especially showing both stupidity
and pugnacity when in districts to which men
rarely penetrate.

On our way out of the woods, after this hunt,
there was a slight warm spell, followed by rain and
then by freezing weather, so as to bring about
what is known as a silver thaw. Every twig was
sheathed in glittering ice, and in the moonlight the
forest gleamed as if carved out of frosted silver.

CHAPTER IX

THE WAPITI OR ROUND-HORNED ELK

ONCE, while on another hunt with John Wil-
lis, I spent a week in a vain effort to kill
moose among the outlying mountains at
the southern end of the Bitter Root range. Then,
as we had no meat, we determined to try for elk,
of which we had seen much sign.

We here camped with a wagon, as high among
the foothills as wheels could go, but several hours'
walk from the range of the game ; for it was still
early in the season, and they had not yet come
down from the upper slopes. Accordingly we
made a practice of leaving the wagon for two or
three days at a time to hunt ; returning to get a
night's rest in the tent, preparatory to a fresh
start. On these trips we carried neither blan-
kets nor packs, as the walking was difficult and we
had much ground to cover. Each merely put on
his jacket, with a loaf of frying-pan bread and a
paper of salt stuffed into the pockets. We were
cumbered with nothing save our rifles and cart-
ridges.

184

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 185

On the morning in question we left camp at
sunrise. For two or three hours we walked up
hill through a rather open growth of small pines
and spruces, the travelling being easy. Then we
came to the edge of a deep valley, a couple of
miles across. Into this we scrambled, down a
steep slide, where the forest had grown up among
the immense boulder masses. The going here was
difficult to a degree ; the great rocks, dead timber,
slippery pine needles, and loose gravel entailing
caution at every step, while we had to guard our
rifles carefully from the consequences of a slip. It
was not much better at the bottom, which was
covered by a tangled mass of swampy forest.
Through this we hunted carefully, but with no
success, in spite of our toil; for the only tracks
we saw that were at all fresh were those of a cow
and calf moose. Finally, in the afternoon, we left
the valley and began to climb a steep gorge, down
which a mountain torrent roared and foamed in a
succession of cataracts.

Three hours' hard climbing brought us to an-
other valley, but of an entirely different character.
It was several miles long, but less than a mile
broad. Save at the mouth, it was walled in com-
pletely by chains of high rock-peaks, their sum-
mits snow-capped; the forest extended a short
distance up their sides. The bottom of the val-
ley was in places covered by open woodland,

i86 The Wilderness Hunter

elsewhere by marshy meadows, dotted with dense
groves of spruce.

Hardly had we entered this valley before we
caught a glimpse of a yearling elk walking rapidly
along a game path some distance ahead. We fol-
lowed as quickly as we could without making a
noise, but after the first glimpse never saw it
again ; for it is astonishing how fast an elk travels,
with its ground-covering walk. We went up the
valley until we were well past its middle, and saw
abundance of fresh elk sign. Evidently two or
three bands had made the neighborhood their
headquarters. Among them were some large
bulls, which had been trying their horns not only
on the quaking-asp and willow saplings, but also
on one another, though the rut had barely begun.
By one pool they had scooped out a kind of wal-
low or bare spot in the grass, and had torn and
tramped the ground with their hoofs. The place
smelt strongly of their urine.

By the time the sun set we were sure the elk
were towards the head of the valley. We utilized
the short twilight in arranging our sleeping-place
for the night, choosing a thick grove of spruce be-
side a small mountain tarn, at the foot of a great
cliff. We were chiefly influenced in our choice by
the abundance of dead timber of a size easy to
handle; the fuel question being all-important on
such a trip, where one has to lie out without bed-

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 187

ding, and to keep up a fire, with no axe to cut
wood.

Having selected a smooth spot, where some
low-growing firs made a wind-break, we dragged
up enough logs to feed the fire throughout the
night. Then we drank our fill at the icy pool, and
ate a few mouthfuls of bread. While it was still
light we heard the querulous bleat of the conies,
from among the slide rocks at the foot of the
mountain; and the chipmunks and chickarees
scolded at us. As dark came on, and we sat
silently gazing into the flickering blaze, the owls
began muttering and hooting.

Clearing the ground of stones and sticks, we lay
down beside the fire, pulled our soft felt hats over
our ears, buttoned our jackets, and went to sleep.
Of course, our slumbers were fitful and broken, for
every hour or two the fire got low and had to be
replenished. We wakened shivering out of each
spell of restless sleep to find the logs smouldering ;
we were alternately scorched and frozen.

As the first faint streak of dawn appeared in the
dark sky my companion touched me lightly on the
arm. The fire was nearly out ; we felt numbed by
the chill air. At once we sprang up, stretched
our arms, shook ourselves, examined our rifles,
swallowed a mouthful or two of bread, and walked
off through the gloomy forest.

At first we could scarcely see our way, but it

1 88 The Wilderness Hunter

grew rapidly lighter. The gray mist rose and
wavered over the pools and wet places ; the morn-
ing voices of the wilderness began to break the
death-like stillness. After we had walked a couple
of miles the mountain tops on our right hand
reddened in the sun-rays.

Then, as we trod noiselessly over the dense
moss, and on the pine needles under the scattered
trees, we heard a sharp clang and clatter up the
valley ahead of us. We knew this meant game of
some sort ; and stealing lightly and cautiously for-
ward we soon saw before us the cause of the noise.

In a little glade, a hundred and twenty-five
yards from us, two bull elk were engaged in deadly
combat, while two others were looking on. It was
a splendid sight. The great beasts faced each
other with lowered horns, the manes that covered
their thick necks and the hair on their shoulders
bristling and erect. Then they charged furiously,
the crash of the meeting antlers resounding through
the valley. The shock threw them both on their
haunches; with locked horns and glaring eyes
they strove against each other, getting their hind
legs well under them, straining every muscle in
their huge bodies, and squealing savagely. They
were evenly matched in weight, strength, and
courage ; and push as they might, neither got the
upper hand, first one yielding a few inches, then
the other, while they swayed to and fro in their

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 189

struggles, smashing the bushes and ploughing up
the soil.

Finally they separated and stood some little
distance apart, under the great pines, their sides
heaving, and columns of steam rising from their
nostrils through the frosty air of the brightening
morning. Again they rushed together with a
crash, and each strove mightily to overthrow the
other, or get past his guard; but the branching
antlers caught every vicious lunge and thrust.
This set-to was stopped rather curiously. One of
the onlooking elk was a yearling; the other,
though scarcely as heavy-bodied as either of the
fighters, had a finer head. He was evidently much
excited by the battle, and he now began to walk
towards the two combatants, nodding his head
and uttering a queer, whistling noise. They dared
not leave their flanks uncovered to his assault;
and as he approached they promptly separated,
and walked off side by side a few yards apart. In
a moment, however, one spun round and jumped
at his old adversary, seeking to stab him in
his unprotected flank; but the latter was just
as quick, and as before caught the rush on his
horns. They closed as furiously as ever; but
the utmost either could do was to inflict one or
two punches on the neck and shoulders of his
foe, where the thick hide served as a shield.
Again the peacemaker approached, nodding his

190 The Wilderness Hunter

head, whistling, and threatening; and again they
separated.

This was repeated once or twice ; and I began
to be afraid lest the breeze which was very light
and puffy should shift and give them my wind.
So, resting my rifle on my knee, I fired twice,
putting one bullet behind the shoulder of the
peacemaker, and the other behind the shoulder
of one of the combatants. Both were deadly
shots, but, as so often with wapiti, neither of the
wounded animals at the moment showed any
signs of being hit. The yearling ran off un-
scathed. The other three crowded together and
trotted behind some spruce on the left, while we
ran forward for another shot. In a moment one
fell; whereupon the remaining two turned and
came back across the glade, trotting to the right.
As we opened fire they broke into a lumbering
gallop, but were both downed before they got out
of sight in the timber.

As soon as the three bulls were down we busied
ourselves taking off their heads and hides, and
cutting off the best portions of the meat — from
the saddles and hams — to take back to camp,
where we smoked it. But first we had breakfast.
We kindled a fire beside a little spring of clear
water and raked out the coals. Then we cut two
willow twigs as spits, ran on each a number of
small pieces of elk loin, and roasted them over the

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 191

fire. We had salt ; we were very hungry ; and I
never ate anything that tasted better.

The wapiti is, next to the moose, the most
quarrelsome and pugnacious of American deer. It
cannot be said that it is ordinarily a dangerous
beast to hunt; yet there are instances in which
wounded wapiti, incautiously approached to with-
in striking distance, have severely misused their
assailants, both with their antlers and their fore
feet. I myself knew one man who had been
badly mauled in this fashion. When tamed the
bulls are dangerous to human life in the rutting
season. In a grapple they are of course infinitely
more to be dreaded than ordinary deer, because of
their great strength.

However, the fiercest wapiti bull, when in a
wild state, flees the neighborhood of man with
the same panic terror shown by the cows ; and he
makes no stand against a grisly, though when his
horns are grown he has little fear of either wolf or
cougar if on his guard and attacked fairly. The
chief battles of the bulls are of course waged with
one another. Before the beginning of the rut they
keep by themselves: singly, while the sprouting
horns are still very young, at which time they lie
in secluded spots and move about as little as pos-
sible; in large bands, later in the season. At the
beginning of the fall these bands join with one an-
other and with the bands of cows and calves,

192 The Wilderness Hunter

which have hkewise been keeping to themselves
during the late winter, the spring, and the sum-
mer. Vast herds are thus sometimes formed, con-
taining, in the old days when wapiti were plenty,
thousands of head. The bulls now begin to fight
furiously with one another, and the great herd
becomes split into smaller ones. Each of these
has one master bull, who has won his position by
savage battle, and keeps it by overcoming every
rival, whether a solitary bull, or the lord of another
harem, who challenges him. When not fighting or
love-making he is kept on the run, chasing away
the young bulls who venture to pay court to the
cows. He has hardly time to eat or sleep, and soon
becomes gaunt and worn to a degree. At the
close of the rut many of the bulls become so
emaciated that they retire to some secluded spot
to recuperate. They are so weak that they readily
succumb to the elements, or to their brute foes;
many die from sheer exhaustion.

The battles between the bulls rarely result
fatally. After a longer or shorter period of charg-
ing, pushing, and struggling, the heavier or more
enduring of the two begins to shove his weaker
antagonist back and round; and the latter then
watches his chance and bolts, hotly, but as a rule
harmlessly, pursued for a few hundred yards. The
massive branching antlers serve as effective guards
against the most wicked thrusts. While the an-

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 193

tagonists are head on, the worst that can happen
is a punch on the shoulder which will not break
the thick hide, though it may bruise the flesh un-
derneath. It is only when a beast is caught while
turning that there is a chance to deliver a possibly
deadly stab in the flank, with the brow prongs,
the "dog-killers," as they are called in bucks.
Sometimes, but rarely, fighting wapiti get their
antlers interlocked and perish miserably ; my own
ranch, the Elkhorn, was named from finding on
the spot where the ranch-house now stands two
splendid pairs of elk antlers thus interlocked.

Wapiti keep their antlers tmtil the spring,
whereas deer and moose lose theirs by midwinter.
The bull's behavior in relation to the cow is merely
that of a vicious and brutal coward. He bullies
her continually, and in times of danger his one
thought is for sneaking off to secure his own
safety. For all his noble looks he is a very un-
amiable beast, who behaves with brutal ferocity
to the weak, and shows abject terror of the strong.
According to his powers, he is guilty of rape, rob-
bery, and even murder. I never felt the least
compunction at shooting a bull, but I hate to
shoot a cow, even when forced by necessity.
Maternity must always appeal to any one. A cow
has more courage than a bull. She will fight val-
iantly for her young calf, striking such blows with
her fore feet that most beasts of prey at once slink

194 The Wilderness Hunter

away from the combat. Cougars and wolves com-
mit great ravages among the bands ; but they often
secure their quarry only at the cost of sharp pre-
liminary tussles — and in tussles of this kind they
do not always prove victors or escape scathless.

During the rut the bulls are very noisy; and
their notes of amorous challenge are called
** whistling" by the frontiersmen, — very inappro-
priately. They begin to whistle about ten days
before they begin to run ; and they have in addi-
tion an odd kind of bark, which is only heard oc-
casionally. The whistling is a most curious, and
to me a most attractive sound, when heard in the
great lonely mountains. As with so many other
things, much depends upon the surroundings.
When listened to nearby and under unfavorable
circumstances, the sound resembles a succession
of hoarse whistling roars, ending with two or three
gasping grunts.

But heard at a little distance, and in its proper
place, the call of the wapiti is one of the grandest
and most beautiful sounds in nature. Especially
is this the case when several rivals are answering
one another, on some frosty moonlight night in
the mountains. The wild melody rings from
chasm to chasm under the giant pines, sustained
and modulated, through bar after bar, filled with
challenge and proud anger. It thrills the soul of
the listening hunter.

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 195

Once, while in the mountains, I listened to a
peculiarly grand chorus of this kind. We were
travelling with pack-ponies at the time, and our
tent was pitched in a grove of yellow pine, by a
brook in the bottom of a valley. On either hand
rose the mountains, covered with spruce forest.
It was in September, and the first snow had just
fallen.

The day before we. had walked long and hard ;
and during the night I slept the heavy sleep of the
weary. Early in the morning, just as the east
began to grow gray, I waked ; and as I did so, the
sounds that smote on my ear caused me to sit up
and throw off the warm blankets. Bull elk were
challenging among the mountains on both sides of
the valley, a little way from us, their notes echoing
like the calling of silver bugles. Groping about in
the dark, I drew on my trousers, an extra pair of
thick socks, and my moccasins, donned a warm
jacket, found my fur cap and gloves, and stole out
of the tent with my rifle.

The air was very cold; the stars were begin-
ning to pale in the dawn ; on the ground the snow
glimmered white, and lay in feathery masses on
the branches of the balsams and young pines. The
air rang with the challenges of many wapiti ; their
incessant calling came pealing down through the
still, snow-laden woods. First one bull chal-
legend; then another answered; then another

196 ' The Wilderness Hunter

and another. Two herds were approaching one
another from opposite sides of the valley, a short
distance above our camp; and the master bulls
were roaring defiance as they mustered their
harems.

I walked stealthily up the valley, until I felt
that I was nearly between the two herds; and
then stood motionless under a tall pine. The
ground was quite open at this point, the pines,
though large, being scattered; the little brook
ran with a strangled murmur between its rows of
willows and alders, for the ice along its edges
nearly skimmed its breadth. The stars paled
rapidly, the gray dawn brightened, and in the sky
overhead faint rose-colored streaks were turning
blood-red. What little wind there was breathed
in my face and kept me from discovery.

I made up my mind, from the sound of the chal-
lenging, now very near me, that one bull on my
right was advancing towards a rival on my left,
who was answering every call. Soon the former
approached so near that I could hear him crack
the branches, and beat the bushes with his horns ;
and I slipped quietly from tree to tree, so as to
meet him when he came out into the more
open woodland. Day broke, and crimson gleams
played across the snow-clad mountains beyond.

At last, just as the sun flamed red above the
hill-tops, I heard the roar of the wapiti's challenge

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 197

not fifty yards away ; and I cocked and half raised
my rifle, and stood motionless. In a moment more,
the belt of spruces in front of me swayed and
opened, and the lordly bull stepped out. He bore
his massive antlers aloft; the snow lay thick on
his mane ; he snuffed the air and stamped on the
ground as he walked. As I drew a bead, the mo-
tion caught his eye ; and instantly his bearing of
haughty and warlike self-confidence changed to
one of alarm. My bullet smote through his
shoulder-blades, and he plunged wildly forward,
and fell full length on the blood-stained snow.

Nothing can be finer than a wapiti bull's car-
riage when excited or alarmed ; he then seems the
embodiment of strength and stately grace. But
at ordinary times his looks are less attractive, as
he walks with his neck level with his body and his
head outstretched, his horns lying almost on his
shoulders. The favorite gait of the wapiti is the
trot, which is very fast, and which they can keep
up for countless miles ; when suddenly and greatly
alarmed, they break into an awkward gallop,
which is faster, but which speedily tires them.

I have occasionally killed elk in the neighbor-
hood of my ranch on the Little Missouri. They
were very plentiful along this river until 1881, but
the last of the big bands were slaughtered or scat-
tered about that time. Smaller bunches were
fotind for two or three years longer; and to this

igS The Wilderness Hunter

day, scattered individuals, singly or in parties of
two or three, linger here and there in the most
remote and inaccessible parts of the broken
country. In the old times they were often found
on the open prairie, and were fond of sunning
themselves on the sand-bars by the river, even at
midday, while they often fed by daylight (as they
do still in remote mountain fastnesses). Now-
adays the few survivors dwell in the timber of
the roughest ravines, and only venture abroad at
dusk or even after nightfall. Thanks to their
wariness and seclusiveness, their presence is often
not even suspected by the cowboys or others who
occasionally ride through their haunts; and so
the hunters only know vaguely of their existence.
It thus happens that the last individuals of a spe-
cies may linger in a locality for many years after
the rest of their kind have vanished ; on the Little
Missouri to-day every elk (as in the Rockies every
buffalo) killed is at once set down as ''the last of
its race." For several years in succession I my-
self kept killing one or two such "last survivors."
A yearling bull which I thus obtained was killed
while in company with my staunch friend Will
Dow, on one of the first trips which I took with
that prince of drivers, old man Tompkins. We
were laying in our stock of winter meat ; and had
taken the wagon to go to a knot of high and very
rugged hills where we knew there were deer, and

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 199

thought there might be elk. Old Tompkins drove
the wagon with unmoved composure up, down,
and across frightful-looking hills, and when they
became wholly impassable, steered the team over
a cut bank and up a kind of winding ravine or
wooded washout, until it became too rough and
narrow for farther progress. There was good
grass for the horses on a hill off to one side of us ;
and stunted cottonwood trees grew between the
straight white walls of clay and sandstone which
hemmed in the washout. We pitched our tent by
a little trickling spring and kindled a great fire,
the fitful glare lighting the bare cliffs and the queer
sprawling tops of the cottonwoods; and after a
dinner of fried prairie-chicken went to bed. At
dawn we were off, and hunted till nearly noon,
when Dow, who had been walking to one side,
beckoned to me and remarked: "There 's some-
thing mighty big in the timber down under the
cliff; I guess it 's an elk" (he had never seen one
before) ; and the next moment, as old Tompkins
expressed it, "the elk came bilin' out of the cou-
lie." Old Tompkins had a rifle on this occasion,
and the sight of game always drove him crazy ; as
I aimed I heard Dow telling him to "let the boss
do the shooting" ; and I killed the elk to a savage
inter jectional accompaniment of threats delivered
at old man Tompkins between the shots.

Elk are sooner killed off than any other game

200 The Wilderness Hunter

save buffalo, but this is due to their size and the
nature of the ground they frequent rather than to
their lack of shyness. They like open woodland,
or mountainous park country, or hills riven by
timber coulies ; and such ground is the most fa-
vorable to the hunter, and the most attractive in
which to hunt. On the other hand, moose, for
instance, live in such dense cover that it is very
difficult to get at them; when elk are driven by
incessant persecution to take refuge in similar
fastnesses they become almost as hard to kill. In
fact, in this respect the elk stands to the moose
much as the blacktail stands to the whitetail.
The moose and whitetail are somewhat warier
than the elk and blacktail ; but it is the nature of
the ground which they inhabit that tells most in
their favor. On the other hand, as compared to
the blacktail, it is only the elk's size which puts it
at a disadvantage in the struggle for life when the
rifle-bearing hunter appears on the scene. It is
quite as shy and difficult to approach as the deer ;
but its bulk renders it much more eagerly hunted,
more readily seen, and more easily hit. Occasion-
ally elk suffer from fits of stupid tameness or
equally stupid panic : but the same is true of black-
tail. In two or three instances I have seen elk
show silly ignorance of danger; but half a dozen
times I have known blacktail behave with an even
greater degree of stupid familiarity.

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 201

There is another point in which the wapiti and
blacktail agree in contrast to the moose and white-
tail. Both the latter delight in water-lilies, enter-
ing the ponds to find them, and feeding on them
greedily. The wapiti is very fond of wallowing in
the mud, and of bathing in pools and lakes; but
as a rule it shows as little fondness as the blacktail
for feeding on water-lilies or other aquatic plants.

In reading of the European red deer, which is
nothing but a diminutive wapiti, we often see a
'' stag of ten" alluded to as if a full-grown monarch.
A full-grown wapiti bull, however, always has
twelve, and may have fourteen, regular normal
points on his antlers, besides irregular additional
prongs ; and he occasionally has ten points when
a two-year-old, as I have myself seen with calves
captured young and tamed. The calf has no
horns. The yearling carries two foot-long spikes,
sometimes bifurcated, so as to make four points.
The two-year-old often has six or eight points on
his antlers ; but sometimes ten, although they are
always small. The three-year-old has eight or
ten points, while his body may be nearly as large
as that of a full-grown animal. The four-year-
old is normally a ten- or twelve-pointer, but as yet
with much smaller antlers than those so proudly
borne by the old bulls.

Frontiersmen only occasionally distinguish the
prongs by name. The brow and bay points are

202 The Wilderness Hunter

called dog-killers or war-tines ; the tray is known
simply as the third point ; and the most character-
istic prong, the long and massive fourth, is now
and then called the dagger-point ; the others being
known as the fifth and sixth.

In the high mountain forest into which the
wapiti has been driven, the large, heavily furred
northern lynx, the lucivee, takes the place of the
smaller, thinner-haired lynx of the plains and of
the more southern districts, the bobcat or wildcat.
On the Little Missouri the latter is the common
form; yet I have seen a lucivee which was killed
there. On Clarke's Fork of the Columbia both
occur, the lucivee being the most common. They
feed chiefly on hares, squirrels, grouse, fawns, etc. ;
and the lucivee, at least, also occasionally kills
foxes and coons, and has in its turn to dread the
pounce of the big timber wolf. Both kinds of lynx
can most easily be killed with dogs, as they tree
quite readily when thus pursued. The wildcat is
often followed on horseback, with a pack of hounds
when the country is favorable ; and when chased
in this fashion yields excellent sport. The skin of
both these lynxes is tender. They often maul an
inexperienced pack quite badly, inflicting several
scratches and bites on any hound which has just
resolution enough to come to close quarters, but
not to rush in furiously; but a big fighting dog
will readily kill either. At Thompson's Falls two

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 203

of Willis's hounds killed a lucivee unaided, though
one got torn. Archibald Rogers's dog Sly, a cross
between a greyhound and a bull mastiff, killed a
bobcat single-handed. He bayed the cat and then
began to threaten it, leaping from side to side;
suddenly he broke the motion, and rushing in got
his foe by the small of the back and killed it with-
out receiving a scratch.

The porcupine is sure to attract the notice of
any one going through the mountains. It is also
found in the timber belts fringing the streams of
the great plains, where it lives for a week at a time
in a single tree or clump of trees, peeling the bark
from the limbs. But it is the easiest of all animals
to exterminate, and is now abundant only in deep
mountain forests. It is very tame and stupid ; it
goes on the ground, but its fastest pace is a clumsy
waddle, and on trees, but is the poorest of tree-
climbers, — grasping the trunk like a small, slow
bear. It can neither escape nor hide. It trusts
to its quills for protection, as the skunk does to its
odor; but it is far less astute and more helpless
than the skunk. It is readily made into a very
unsuspicious and familiar, but uninteresting, pet.
I have known it come into camp in the daytime,
and forage round the fire by which I was sitting.
Its coat protects it against most foes. Bears
sometimes eat it when very hungry, as they will
eat anything; and I think that elk occasionally

204 The Wilderness Hunter

destroy it in sheer wantonness. One of its most
resolute foes is the fisher, that big sable — almost a
wolverine — which preys on everything, from a
coon to a fawn, or even a small fox.

The noisy, active little chickarees and chip-
munks, however, are by far the most num.erous
and lively denizens of these deep forests. They
are very abundant and very noisy; scolding the
travellers exactly as they do the bears when the
latter dig up the caches of ants. The chipmunks
soon grow tame and visit camp to pick up the
crusts. The chickarees often ascend to the high-
est pine tops, where they cut off the cones, drop-
ping them to the ground with a noise which often
for a moment puzzles the still-hunter.

Two of the most striking and characteristic
birds to be seen by him who hunts and camps
among the pine-clad and spruce-clad slopes of the
northern Rockies are a small crow and a rather
large woodpecker. The former is called Clark's
crow, and the latter Lewis's woodpecker. Their
names commemorate their discoverers, the ex-
plorers Lewis and Clark, the first white men who
crossed the United States to the Pacific, the pio-
neers of that great army of adventurers who since
then have roamed and hunted over the great
plains and among the Rocky Mountains.

These birds are nearly of a size, being about
as large as a flicker. The Clark crow, an ash-

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 205

colored bird with black wings and white tail and
forehead, is as common as it is characteristic, and
is sure to attract attention. It is as knowing as
the rest of its race, and very noisy and active. It
flies sometimes in a straight line, with regular
wing-beats, sometimes in a succession of loops
like a woodpecker, and often lights on rough bark
or a dead stump in an attitude like the latter ; and
it is very fond of scrambling and clinging, often
head downwards, among the outermost cones on
the top of a pine, chattering loudly all the while.
One of the noticeable features of its flight is the
hollow, beating sound of the wings. It is restless
and fond of company, going by preference in small
parties. These little parties often indulge in reg-
ular plays, assembling in some tall tree-top and
sailing round and round it, in noisy pursuit of one
another, lighting continually among the branches.
The Lewis woodpecker, a handsome, dark-
green bird, with white breast and red belly, is
much rarer, quite as shy, and generally less noisy
and conspicuous. Its flight is usually strong and
steady, like a jay's, and it perches upright among
the twigs, or takes short flights after passing in-
sects, as often as it scrambles over the twigs in
the ordinary woodpecker fashion. Like its com-
panion, the Clark crow, it is ordinarily a bird
of the high tree-tops, and around these it in-
dulges in curious aerial games, again like those of

2o6 The Wilderness Hunter

the little crow. It is fond of going in troops, and
such a troop frequently choose some tall pine and
soar round and above it in irregular spirals.

The remarkable and almost amphibious little
water-wren, with its sweet song, its familiarity,
and its very curious habit of running on the
bottom of the stream, several feet beneath the
surface of the race of rapid water, is the most
noticeable of the small birds of the Rocky Moun-
tains. It sometimes sings loudly while floating
with half spread wings on the surface of a little
pool. Taken as a whole, small birds are far less
numerous and noticeable in the wilderness, especi-
ally in the deep forests, than in the groves and
farmland of the settled country. The hunter and
trapper are less familiar with small-bird music
than with the screaming of the eagle and the
large hawks, the croaking bark of the raven,
the loon's cry, the crane's guttural clangor, and
the unearthly yelling and hooting of the big owls.

No bird is so common around camp, so familiar,
so amusing on some occasions, and so annoying on
others, as that drab-colored imp of iniquity, the
whisky- jack — also known as the moose-bird and
camp-robber. The familiarity of these birds is
astonishing, and the variety of their cries — gen-
erally harsh, but rarely musical — extraordinary.
They snatch scraps of food from the entrances of
the tents, and from beside the camp-fire ; and they

Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk 207

shred the venison hting in the trees unless closely
watched. I have seen an irate cook of accurate
aim knock one off an elk-haunch, with a club
seized at random ; and I have known another to
be killed with a switch, and yet another to be
caught alive in the hand. When game is killed
they are the first birds to come to the carcass.
Following them come the big jays, of a uniform
dark-blue color, who bully them, and are bullied
in turn by the next arrivals, the magpies ; while,
when the big ravens come, they keep all the others
in the background, with the exception of an occa-
sional wide-awake magpie.

For a steady diet, no meat tastes better or is
more nourishing than elk venison ; moreover, the
different kinds of grouse give variety to the fare,
and delicious trout swarm throughout the haunts
of the elk in the Rockies. I have never seen them
more numerous than in the wonderful and beauti-
ful Yellowstone Canyon, a couple of miles below
where the river pitches over the Great Falls, in
wind-swayed cataracts of snowy foam. At this
point it runs like a mill-race, in its narrow, winding
bed, between immense walls of queerly carved and
colored rock, which tower aloft in almost per-
pendicular cliffs. Late one afternoon in the fall of
'90 Ferguson and I clambered down into the can-
yon, with a couple of rods, and in an hour caught
all the fish we could carry. It then lacked much

2o8 The Wilderness Hunter

less than an hour of nightfall, and we had a hard
climb to get out of the canyon before darkness
overtook us ; as there was not a vestige of a path,
and as the climbing was exceedingly laborious and
at one or two points not entirely without danger,
the rocks being practicable in very few places, we
could hardly have made much progress after it
became too dark to see. Each of us carried the
bag of trout in turn, and I personally was nearly
done out when we reached the top ; and then had
to trot three miles to the horses.

CHAPTER X

AN ELK-HUNT AT TWO-OCEAN PASS

IN September, 1891, with my ranch-partner,
Ferguson, I made an elk-hunt in north-
western Wyoming among the Shoshone Moun-
tains, where they join the Hoodoo and Absoraka
ranges. There is no more beautiful game-country
in the United States. It is a park land, where
glades, meadows, and high mountain pastures
break the evergreen forest — a forest which is open
compared to the tangled density of the woodland
farther north. It is a high, cold region of many
lakes and clear rushing streams. The steep moun-
tains are generally of the rounded form so often
seen in the ranges of the Cordilleras of the United
States; but the Hoodoos, or Goblins, are carved
in fantastic and extraordinary shapes; while the
Tetons, a group of isolated rock-peaks, show a
striking boldness in their lofty outlines.

This was one of the pleasantest hunts I ever
made. As always in the mountains, save where
the country is so rough and so densely wooded
that one must go afoot, we had a pack-train ; and
we took a more complete outfit than we had ever

VOL. I.— 14

209

2IO The Wilderness Hunter

before taken on such a hunt, and so travelled in
much comfort. Usually when in the motmtains
I have merely had one companion, or at most a
couple, and two or three pack-ponies ; each of us
doing his share of the packing, cooking, fetching
water, and pitching the small square of canvas
which served as tent. In itself, packing is both an
art and a mystery, and a skilful professional
packer, versed in the intricacies of the "diamond
hitch," packs with a speed which no non-profes-
sional can hope to rival, and fixes the side packs
and top packs with such scientific nicety, and ad-
justs the doubles and turns of the lash-rope so
accurately, that everything stays in place under
any but the most adverse conditions, Of course,
like most hunters, I can myself in case of need
throw the diamond hitch after a fashion, and pack
on either the off or near side. Indeed, unless a
man can pack it is not possible to make a really
hard hunt in the mountains if alone, or with only
a single companion. The mere fair-weather hun-
ter, who trusts entirely to the exertions of others,
and does nothing more than ride or walk about
under favorable circumstances, and shoots at
what somebody else shows him, is a hunter in name
only. Whoever would really deserve the title
must be able at a pinch to shift for himself, to
grapple with the difficulties and hardships of
wilderness life unaided, and not only to hunt, but

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 211

at times to travel for days, whether on foot or on
horseback, alone. However, after one has passed
one's novitiate, it is pleasant to be comfortable
when the comfort does not interfere with the
sport; and although a man sometimes likes to
hunt alone, yet often it is well to be with some old
mountain hunter, a master of woodcraft, who is a
first-rate hand at finding game, creeping upon it,
and tracking it when wounded. With such a
companion one gets much more game, and learns
many things by observation instead of by painful
experience.

On this trip we had with us two hunters, Taze-
well Woody and Elwood Hofer, a packer who
acted as cook, and a boy to herd the horses. Of
the latter, there were twenty: six saddle-animals
and fourteen for the packs — two or three being
spare horses, to be used later in carrying the elk-
antlers, sheep-horns, and other trophies. Like
most himters' pack-animals, they were either
half -broken, or else broken down; tough, un-
kempt, jaded-looking beasts of every color — sor-
rel, buckskin, pinto, white, bay, roan. After the
day's work was over, they were turned loose to
shift for themselves ; and about once a week they
strayed, and all hands had to spend the better
part of the day hunting for them. The worst
ones for straying, curiously enough, were three
brokendown old "bear-baits," which went by

212 The Wilderness Hunter

themselves, as is generally the case with the
cast-off horses of a herd. There were two sleeping
tents, another for the provisions, — in which we ate
during bad weather, — and a canvas tepee, which
was put up with lodge-poles, Indian fashion, like a
wigwam. A tepee is more difficult to put up than
an ordinary tent ; but it is very convenient when
there is rain or snow. A small fire kindled in the
middle keeps it warm, the smoke escaping through
the open top — that is, when it escapes at all;
strings are passed from one pole to another, on
which to hang wet clothes and shoes, and the beds
are made around the edges. As an offset to the
warmth and shelter, the smoke often renders it
impossible even to sit upright. We had a very
good camp-kit, including plenty of cooking- and
eating-utensils; and among our provisions were
some canned goods and sweetmeats, to give a
relish to our meals of meat and bread. We had
fur coats and warm clothes, — which are chiefly
needed at night, — and plenty of bedding, includ-
ing waterproof canvas sheeting and a couple of
caribou-hide sleeping-bags, procured from the sur-
vivors of a party of arctic explorers. Except on
rainy days I used my buckskin hunting-shirt or
tunic; in dry weather I deem it, because of its
color, texture, and durability, the best possible
garb for the still-hunter, especially in the woods.
Starting a day's journey south of Heart Lake,

An Elk- Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 213

we travelled and hunted on the eastern edge of
the great basin, wooded and moiintainous, where-
in rises the head-waters of the mighty Snake
River. There was not so much as a spotted line —
that series of blazes made with the axe, man's first
highway through the hoary forest; but this we
did not mind, as for most of the distance we fol-
lowed the well-worn elk trails. The train travelled
in Indian file. At the head, to pick the path, rode
tall, silent old Woody, a true type of the fast-
vanishing race of game hunters and Indian fight-
ers, a man who had been one of the California
forty-niners, and who ever since had lived the rest-
less, reckless life of the wilderness. Then came
Ferguson and myself; then the pack-animals,
strung out in line; while from the rear rose the
varied oaths of our three companions, whose mis-
erable duty it was to urge forward the beasts of
burden.

It is heart-breaking work to drive a pack-train
through thick timber and over mountains, where
there is either a dim trail or none. The animals
have a perverse faculty for choosing the wrong
turn at critical moments ; and they are continually
scraping under branches and squeezing between
tree-trunks, to the jeopardy or destruction of
their burdens. After having been laboriously
driven up a very steep incline, at the cost of severe
exertion both to them and to the men, the foolish

214 The Wilderness Hunter

creatures turn and run down to the bottom, so
that all the work has to be done over again. Some
travel too slow ; others travel too fast. Yet one
cannot but admire the toughness of the animals,
and the surefootedness with which they pick their
way along the sheer mountain-sides, or among
boulders and over fallen logs.

As our way was so rough, we found that we had
to halt at least once every hour to fix the packs.
Moreover, we at the head of the column were
continually being appealed to for help by the un-
fortunates in the rear. First it would be " that
white-eyed cay use; one side of its pack 's down!"
then we would be notified that the saddle-blanket
of the "lop-eared Indian buckskin" had slipped
back; then a shout ''Look out for the pinto!"
would be followed by that pleasing beast's appear-
ance, bucking and squealing, smashing dead tim-
ber, and scattering its load to the four winds. It
was no easy task to get the horses across some of
the boggy places without miring ; or to force them
through the denser portions of the forest, where
there was much down timber. Riding with a
pack-train, day in and day out, becomes both
monotonous and irritating, unless one is upheld
by the hope of a game country ahead, or by the
delight of exploration of the unknown. Yet when
buoyed by such a hope, there is pleasure in taking
a train across so beautiful and wild a country as

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 215

that which lay on the threshold of our hunting-
grounds in the Shoshones, We went over moun-
tain passes, with ranges of scalped peaks on either
hand ; we skirted the edges of lovely lakes, and of
streams with boulder-strewn beds; we plunged
into depths of sombre woodland, broken by wet
prairies. It was a picturesque sight to see the
loaded pack-train stringing across one of these
high mountain meadows, the raotley colored line
of ponies winding round the marshy spots through
the bright green grass, while beyond rose the dark
line of frowning forest, with lofty peaks towering
in the background. Some of the meadows were
beautiful with many flowers — goldenrod, purple
aster, bluebells, white immortelles, and here and
there masses of blood-red Indian pinks. In the
park country, on the edges of the evergreen forest,
were groves of delicate quaking-aspen, the trees
often growing to quite a height ; their tremulous
leaves were already changing to bright green and
yellow, occasionally with a reddish blush. In the
Rocky Mountains the aspens are almost the only
deciduous trees, their foliage offering a pleasant
relief to the eye after the monotony of the unend-
ing pine and spruce woods, which afford so strik-
ing a contrast to the hardwood forest east of the
Mississippi.

For two days our journey was uneventful, save
that we came on the camp of a squaw-man — one

2i6 The Wilderness Hunter

Beaver Dick, an old mountain hunter, living in a
skin tepee, where dwelt his comely Indian wife
and half-breed children. He had quite a herd of
horses, many of them mares and colts ; they had
evidently been well treated, and came up to us
fearlessly.

The morning of the third day of our journey
was gray and lowering. Gusts of rain blew in my
face as I rode at the head of the train. It still
lacked an hour of noon, as we were plodding up a
valley beside a rapid brook running through nar-
row willow-flats, the dark forest crowding down
on either hand from the low foothills of the moun-
tains. Suddenly the call of a bull elk came echoing
down through the wet woodland on our right, be-
yond the brook, seemingly less than half a mile
off, and was answered by a faint, far-off call from
a rival on the mountain beyond. Instantly halt-
ing the train. Woody and I slipped off our horses,
crossed the brook, and started to still-hunt the
first bull.

In this place the forest was composed of the
western tamarack; the large, tall trees stood well
apart, and there was much down timber, but the
ground was covered with deep wet moss, over
which we trod silently. The elk was travelling
up-wind, but slowly, stopping continually to paw
the ground and thresh the bushes with his antlers.
He was very noisy, challenging every minute or

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 217

two, being doubtless much excited by the neigh-
borhood of his rival on the mountain. We fol-
lowed, Woody leading, guided by the incessant
calling.

It was very exciting as we crept toward the
great bull, and the challenge sounded nearer and
nearer. While we were still at some distance the
pealing notes were like those of a bugle, delivered
in two bars, first rising, then abruptly falling; as
we drew nearer they took on a harsh squealing
sound. Each call made our veins thrill ; it sotmded
like the cry of some huge beast of prey. At last
we heard the roar of the challenge not eighty yards
off. Stealing forward three or four yards, I saw
the tips of the horns through a mass of dead tim-
ber and young growth, and I slipped to one side
to get a clean shot. Seeing us, but not making
out what we were, and full of fierce and insolent
excitement, the wapiti bull stepped boldly toward
us with a stately swinging gait. Then he stood
motionless, facing us, barely fifty yards away, his
handsome twelve-tined antlers tossed aloft, as he
held his head with the lordly grace of his kind. I
fired into his chest, and as he turned I raced for-
ward and shot him in the flank; but the second
bullet was not needed, for the first wound was
mortal, and he fell before going fifty yards.

The dead elk lay among the young evergreens.
The huge, shapely body was set on legs that were

2i8 The Wilderness Hunter

as strong as steel rods, and yet slender, clean, and
smooth; they were in color a beautiful dark
brown, contrasting well with the yellowish of the
body. The neck and throat were garnished with
a mane of long hair; the symmetry of the great
horns set off the fine, delicate lines of the noble
head. He had been wallowing, as elk are fond of
doing, and the dried mud clung in patches to his
flank; a stab in the haunch showed that he had
been overcome in battle by some master bull who
had turned him out of the herd.

We cut off the head, and bore it down to the
train. The horses crowded together, snorting,
with their ears pricked forward, as they smelt the
blood. We also took the loins with us, as we were
out of meat, though bull elk in the rutting season
is not very good. The rain had changed to a
steady downpour when we again got under way.
Two or three miles farther we pitched camp, in a
clump of pines on a hillock in the bottom of the
valley, starting hot fires of pitchy stumps before
the tents, to dry our wet things.

Next day opened with fog and cold rain. The
drenched pack-animals, when driven into camp,
stood mopingly, with drooping heads and arched
backs; they groaned and grunted as the loads
were placed on their backs and the cinches tight-
ened, the packers bracing one foot against the
pack to get a purchase as they hauled in on the

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 219

lash-rope. A stormy morning is a trial to temper ;
the packs are wet and heavy, and the cold makes
the work even more than usually hard on the
hands. By ten we broke camp. It needs be-
tween two and three hours to break camp and get
such a train properly packed; once started, our
day's journey was six to eight hours, making no
halt. We started up a steep, pine-clad mountain-
side, broken by cliffs. My hunting-shoes, though
comfortable, were old and thin, and let the water
through like a sieve. On the top of the first pla-
teau, where black spruce groves were strewn
across the grassy surface, we saw a band of elk,
cows and calves, trotting off through the rain.
Then we plunged down into a deep valley, and,
crossing it, a hard climb took us to the top of a
great bare table -land, bleak and wind-swept. We
passed little alpine lakes, fringed with scattering
dwarf evergreens. Snow lay in drifts on the
north side of the gullies ; a cutting wind blew the
icy rain in our faces. For two or three hours we
travelled toward the farther edge of the table-
land. In one place a spike bull elk stood half a
mile off, in the open; he travelled to and fro,
watching us.

As we neared the edge the storm lulled, and
pale, watery sunshine gleamed through the rifts
in the low-scudding clouds. At last our horses
stood on the brink of a bold cliff. Deep down

2 20 The Wilderness Hunter

beneath our feet lay the wild and lonely valley of
Two-Ocean Pass, walled in on either hand by
rugged mountain chains, their flanks scarred and
gashed by precipice and chasm. Beyond, in a
wilderness of jagged and barren peaks, stretched
the Shoshones. At the middle point of the pass,
two streams welled down from either side. At
first each flowed in but one bed, but soon divided
into two; each of the twin branches then joined
the like branch of the brook opposite, and swept
one to the east and one to the west, on their long
journey to the two great oceans. They ran as
rapid brooks, through wet meadows and willow-
fiats, the eastern to the Yellowstone, the western
to the Snake. The dark pine forests swept down
from the flanks and lower ridges of the mountains
to the edges of the marshy valley. Above them
jutted gray rock-peaks, snowdrifts lying in the
rents that seamed their northern faces. Far be-
low us, from a great basin at the foot of the cliff,
filled with the pine forest, rose the musical chal-
lenge of a bull elk ; and we saw a band of cows and
calves looking like mice as they ran among the
trees.

It was getting late, and after some search we
failed to find any trail leading down ; so at last we
plunged over the brink at a venture. It was very
rough scrambling, dropping from bench to bench,
and in places it was not only difficult but danger-

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 221

ous for the loaded pack-animals. Here and there
we were helped by well-beaten elk trails, which we
could follow for several hundred yards at a time.
On one narrow pine-clad ledge, we met a spike
bull face to face ; and in scrambling down a very
steep, bare, rock-strewn shoulder the loose stones
started by the horses' hoofs, bounding in great
leaps to the forest below, dislodged two cows.

As evening fell, we reached the bottom, and
pitched camp in a beautiful point of open pine
forest, thrust out into the meadow. There was
good shelter, and plenty of wood, water, and
grass ; we built a huge fire and put up our tents,
scattering them in likely places among the pines,
which grew far apart and without undergrowth.
We dried our steaming clothes, and ate a hearty
supper of elk-meat ; then we turned into our beds,
warm and dry, and slept soundly under the can-
vas, while all night long the storm roared with-
out. Next morning it still stormed fitfully; the
high peaks and ridges round about were all capped
with snow. Woody and I started on foot for an
all-day tramp ; the amount of game seen the day
before showed that we were in good elk country,
where the elk had been so little disturbed that
they were travelling, feeding, and whistling in
daylight. For three hours we walked across the
forest-clad spurs of the foothills. We roused a
small band of elk in thick timber; but they

222 The Wilderness Hunter

rushed off before we saw them, with much
smashing of dead branches. Then we climbed to
the summit of the range. The wind was Hght
and baffling; it blew from all points, veering
every few minutes. There were occasional rain-
squalls; our feet and legs were^well soaked; and
we became chilled through whenever we sat
down to listen. We caught a glimpse of a big
bull feeding up-hill, and followed him; it needed
smart running to overtake him, for an elk, even
while feeding, has a ground-covering gait. Fin-
ally we got within a hundred and twenty-five
yards, but in very thick timber, and all I could
see plainly was the hip and the after-part of the
flank. I waited for a chance at the shoulder,
but the bull got my wind and was off before I
could pull trigger. It was just one of those oc-
casions when there are two courses to pursue,
neither very good, and when one is apt to regret
whichever decision is made.

At noon we came to the edge of a deep and
wide gorge, and sat down shivering to wait what
might turn up, our fingers numb, and our wet
feet icy. Suddenly the love-challenge of an elk
came pealing across the gorge, through the fine,
cold rain, from the heart of the forest opposite
An hour's stiff climb, down and up, brought us
nearly to him ; but the wind forced us to advance
from below through a series of open glades. He

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 223

was lying on a point of the cliff-shoulder, sur-
rounded by his cows, and he saw us and made
off. An hour afterward, as we were trudging up
a steep hillside dotted with groves of fir and
spruce, a young bull of ten points, roused from
his day-bed by our approach, galloped across us
some sixty yards off. We were in need of better
venison than can be furnished by an old rutting
bull; so I instantly took shot at the fat and
tender young ten-pointer. I aimed well ahead
and pulled trigger just as he came to a small gully,
and he fell into it in a heap with a resounding
crash. This was on the birthday of my eldest
small son; so I took him home the horns, ''for
his very own." On the way back that after-
noon I shot off the heads of two blue grouse, as
they perched in the pines.

That evening the storm broke, and the weather
became clear and very cold, so that the snow
made the frosty mountains gleam like silver.
The moon was full, and in the flood of light the
wild scenery round our camp was very beautiful.
As always where we camped for several days, we
had fixed long tables and settles, and were most
comfortable ; and when we came in at nightfall, or
sometimes long afterward, cold, tired, and hun-
gry, it was sheer physical delight to get warm
before the roaring fire of pitchy stumps, and then
to feast ravenously on bread and beans, on stewed

2 24 The Wilderness Hunter

or roasted elk venison, on grouse, and sometimes
trout, and flapjacks with maple syrup.

Next morning dawned clear and cold, the sky
a glorious blue. Woody and I started to hunt
over the great table-land, and led our stout horses
up the mountain-side, by elk trails so bad that
they had to climb like goats. All these elk trails
have one striking peculiarity. They lead through
thick timber, but every now and then send off
short, well-worn branches to some cliff-edge or
jutting crag, commanding a view far and wide
over the country beneath. Elk love to stand on
these lookout points, and scan the valleys and
mountains round about.

Blue grouse rose from beside our path ; Clarke's
crows flew past us, with a hollow, flapping sound,
or lit in the pine-tops, calling and flirting their
tails; the gray-clad whisky-jacks, with multi-
tudinous cries, hopped and fluttered near us.
Snow-shoe rabbits scuttled away, the big furry
feet which give them their name already turning
white. At last we came out on the great plateau,
seamed with deep, narrow ravines. Reaches of
pasture alternated with groves and open forests
of varying size. Almost immediately we heard
the bugle of a bull elk, and saw a big band of
cows and calves on the other side of a valley.
There were three bulls with them, one very large,
and we tried to creep up on them ; but the wind

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 225

was baffling and spoiled our stalk. So we re-
turned to our horses, mounted them, and rode a
mile farther, toward a large open wood on a hill-
side. When within two hundred yards we heard
directly ahead the bugle of a bull, and pulled up
short. In a moment I saw him walking through
an open glade; he had not seen us. The slight
breeze brought us down his scent. Elk have a
strong characteristic smell; it is usually sweet,
like that of a herd of Aldemey cows; but in old
bulls, while rutting, it is rank, pimgent, and
lasting. We stood motionless till the bull was
out of sight, then stole to the wood, tied our
horses, and trotted after him. He was travelling
fast, occasionally calling; whereupon others in
the neighborhood would answer. Evidently he
had been driven out of some herd by the master
bull.

He went faster than we did, and while we were
vainly trying to overtake him we heard another
very loud and sonorous challenge to our left. It
came from a ridge-crest at the edge of the woods,
among some scattered clumps of the northern
nut-pine or pinyon — a queer conifer, growing very
high on the mountains, its multiforked trunk and
wide-spreading branches giving it the rounded
top, and, at a distance, the general look of an
oak rather than a pine. We at once walked
toward the ridge, up-wind. In a minute or two,

VOL. I. — 15.

226 The Wilderness Hunter

to our chagrin, we stumbled on an out-lying
spike bull, evidently kept on the out-skirts of the
herd by the master bull. I thought he would
alarm all the rest; but, as we stood motionless,
he could not see clearly what we were. He
stood, ran, stood again, gazed at us, and trotted
slowly off. We hurried forward as fast as we
dared, and with too little care; for we suddenly
came in view of two cows. As they raised their
heads to look, Woody squatted down where he
was, to keep their attention fixed, while I cau-
tiously tried to slip off to one side unobserved.
Favored by the neutral tint of my buckskin
hunting-shirt, with which my shoes, leggins, and
soft hat matched, I succeeded. As soon as I
was out of sight I ran hard and came up to a
hillock crested with pinyons, behind which I
judged I should find the herd. As I approached
the crest, their strong, sweet smell smote my
nostrils. In another moment I saw the tips of a
pair of mighty antlers, and I peered over the
crest with my rifle at the ready. Thirty yards off,
behind a clump of pinyons, stood a huge bull, his
head thrown back as he rubbed his shoulders
with his horns. There were several cows around
him, and one saw me immediately, and took
alarm. I fired into the bull's shoulder, inflicting
a mortal wound; but he went off, and I raced
after him at top speed, firing twice into his flank:

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 227

then he stopped, very sick, and I broke his neck
with a fourth bullet. An elk often hesitates in
the first moments of surprise and fright, and
does not get really under way for two or three
hundred yards; but, when once fairly started,
he may go several miles, even though mortally
wounded; therefore, the hunter, after his first
shot, should run forward as fast as he can, and
shoot again and again until the quarry drops.
In this way many animals that would be other-
wise lost are obtained, especially by the man who
has a repeating-rifle. Nevertheless, the hunter
should beware of being led astray by the ease
with which he can fire half a dozen shots from
his repeater; and he should aim as carefully with
each shot as if it were his last. No possible
rapidity of fire can atone for habitual careless-
ness of aim with the first shot.

The elk I thus slew was a giant. His body
was the size of a steer's, and his antlers, though
not -unusually long, were very massive and heavy.
He lay in a glade, on the edge of a great cliff.
Standing on its brink we overlooked a most
beautiful country, the home of all homes for the
elk: a -wilderness of mountains, the immense
evergreen forest broken by park and glade, by
meadow and pasture, by bare hillside and barren
table-land. Some five miles off lay the sheet of
water known to the old hunters as Spotted Lake ;

228 The Wilderness Hunter

two or three shallow, sedgy places, and spots of
geyser formation, made pale green blotches on
its wind-rippled surface. Far to the southwest,
in daring beauty and majesty, the grand domes
and lofty spires of the Tetons shot into the blue
sky. Too sheer for the snow to rest on their
sides, it yet filled the rents in their rough flanks,
and lay deep between the towering pinnacles of
dark rock.

That night, as on more than one night after-
ward, a bull elk came down whistling to within
two or three hundred yards of the tents, and
tried to join the horse-herd. The moon had set,
so I could not go after it. Elk are very restless
and active throughout the night in the rutting
season; but where undisturbed they feed freely
in the daytime, resting for two or three hours
about noon.

Next day, which was rainy, we spent in getting
in the antlers and meat of the two dead elk ; and
I shot off the heads of two or three blue grouse on
the way home. The following day I killed an-
other bull elk, following him by the strong, not
unpleasing, smell, and hitting him twice as he
ran, at about eighty yards. So far I had had
good luck, killing everything I had shot at; but
now the luck changed, through no fault of mine,
as far as I could see, and Ferguson had his in-
nings. The day after I killed this bull he shot

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 229

two fine mountain rams ; and during the remain-
der of our hunt he killed five elk — one cow, for
meat, and four good bulls. The two rams were
with three others, all old and with fine horns;
Ferguson peeped over a lofty precipice and saw
them coming up it only fifty yards below him.
His two first and finest bulls were obtained by
hard running and good shooting; the herds were
on the move at the time, and only his speed of
foot and soundness of wind enabled him to get
near enough for a shot. One herd started before
he got close, and he killed the master bull by a
shot right through the heart, as it trotted past,
a hundred and fifty yards distant.

As for me, during the next ten days I killed
nothing save one cow for meat ; and this though
I hunted hard every day from morning till night,
no matter what the weather. It was stormy, with
hail and snow every day almost ; and after work-
ing hard from dawn until nightfall, laboriously
climbing the slippery mountain-sides, walking
through the wet woods, and struggling across
the bare plateaus and cliff -shoulders, while the
violent blasts of wind drove the frozen rain in
our faces, we would come in after dusk wet
through and chilled to the marrow. Even when
it rained in the valleys it snowed on the moun-
tain-tops, and there was no use trying to keep our
feet dry. I got three shots at bull elk, two being

230 The Wilderness Hunter

very hurried snap-shots at animals running in
thick timber, the other a running-shot in the open,
at over two hundred yards; and I missed all
three. On most days I saw no bull worth shoot-
ing ; the two or three I did see or hear we failed
to stalk, the light, shifty wind baffling us, or else
an outlying cow which we had not seen giving
the alarm. There were many blue and a few
ruffed grouse in the woods, and I occasionally
shot off the heads of a couple on my way home-
ward in the evening. In racing after one elk, I
leaped across a gully and so bruised and twisted
my heel on a rock that, for the remainder of my
stay in the mountains, I had to walk on the fore
part of that foot. This did not interfere much
with my walking, however, except in going down
hill.

Our ill success was in part due to sheer bad
luck; but the chief element therein was the pres-
ence of a great hunting-party of Shoshone In-
dians. Split into bands of eight or ten each,
they scoured the whole country on their tough,
sure-footed ponies. They always hunted on
horseback, and followed the elk at full speed
wherever they went. Their method of hunting
was to organize great drives, the riders strung in
lines far apart ; they signalled to one another by
means of willow whistles, with which they also
imitated the calling of the bull elk, thus tolling

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 231

the animals to them, or making them betray
their whereabouts. As they slew whatever they
could, but by preference cows and calves, and as
they were very persevering, but also very excit-
able and generally poor shots, so that they wasted
much powder, they not only wrought havoc
among the elk, but also scared the survivors out
of all the country over which they hunted.

Day in and day out we plodded on. In a
himting trip the days of long monotony in getting
to the ground, and the days of unrequited toil
after it has been reached, always far outnumber
the red-letter days of success. But it is just
these times of failure that really test the hunter.
In the long run, common sense and dogged perse-
verence avail him more than any other qualities.
The man who does not give up, but hunts steadily
and resolutely through the spells of bad luck un-
till the luck turns, is the man who wins success
in the end.

After a week at Two-Ocean Pass, we gathered
our pack-animals one frosty m^oming, and again
set off across the mountains. A two days' jaunt
took us to the summit of Wolverine Pass, near
Pinyon Peak, beside a little mountain tarn ; each
morning we found its surface skimmed with black
ice, for the nights were cold. After three or four
days, we shifted camp to the mouth of Wolverine
Creek, to get off the hunting-grounds of the In-

232 The Wilderness Hunter

dians. We had used up our last elk-meat that
morning, and when we were within a couple of
hours' journey of our intended halting-place,
Woody and I struck off on foot for a hunt. Just
before sunset we came on three or four elk; a
spike bull stood for a moment behind some thick
evergreens a hundred yards off. Guessing at his
shoulder, I fired, and he fell dead after running
a few rods, I had broken the luck, after ten
days of ill success.

Next morning Woody and I, with the packer,
rode to where this elk lay. We loaded the meat
on a pack-horse, and let the packer take both
the loaded animal and our own saddle-horses
back to camp, while we made a hunt on foot.
We went up the steep, forest-clad mountain-side,
and before we had walked an hour heard two elk
whistling ahead of us. The woods were open,
and quite free from undergrowth, and we were
able to advance noiselessly; there was no wind,
for the weather was still, clear, and cold. Both
of the elk were evidently very much excited, an-
swering each other continually ; they had probably
been master bulls, but had become so exhausted
that their rivals had driven them from the herds,
forcing them to remain in seclusion until they re-
gained their lost strength. As we crept stealthily
forward, the calling grew louder and louder,
until we could hear the grunting sounds with

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 233

which the challenge of the nearest ended. He
was in a large wallow, which was also a lick.
When we were still sixty yards ofiE, he heard us,
and rushed out, but wheeled and stood a moment
to gaze, puzzled by my buckskin suit. I fired
into his throat, breaking his neck, and down he
went in a heap. Rushing in and turning, I called
to Woody, ''He's a twelve-pointer, but the horns
are small!" As I spoke I heard the roar of the
challenge of the other bull not two hundred yards
ahead, as if in defiant answer to my shot.

Running quietly forward, I speedily caught a
glimpse of his body. He was behind some fir-
trees about seventy yards off, and I could not
see which way he was standing, and so fired into
the patch of flank which was visible, aiming high,
to break the back. My aim was true, and the
huge beast crashed down-hill through the ever-
greens, pulling himself on his fore legs for fifteen
or twenty rods, his hind quarters trailing. Rac-
ing forward, I broke his neck. His antlers were
the finest I ever got. A couple of whisky- jacks
appeared at the first crack of the rifle with their
customary astonishing familiarity and heedless-
ness of the hunter; they followed the wounded
bull as he dragged his great carcass down the
hill, and pounced with ghoulish bloodthirstiness
on the gouts of blood that were sprinkled over
the green herbage.

234 The Wilderness Hunter

These two bulls lay only a couple of hundred
yards apart, on a broad game trail, which was as
well beaten as a good bridle-path. We began to
skin out the heads; and as we were finishing we
heard another bull challenging far up the moun-
tain. He came nearer and nearer, and as soon
as we had ended our work we grasped our rifles
and trotted toward him along the game trail.
He was very noisy, uttering his loud, singing
challenge every minute or two. The trail was
so broad and firm that we walked in perfect
silence. After going only five or six hundred
yards, we got very close indeed, and stole for-
ward on tip-toe, listening to the roaring music.
The sound came from a steep narrow ravine, to
one side of the trail, and I walked toward it with
my rifle at the ready. A slight puff gave the elk
my wind, and he dashed out of the ravine like a
deer; but he was only thirty yards off, and my
bullet went into his shoulder as he passed behind
a clump of young spruce. I plunged into the
ravine, scrambled out of it, and raced after him.
In a minute I saw him standing with drooping
head, and two more shots finished him. He also
bore fine antlers. It was a great piece of luck
to get three such fine bulls at the cost of half a
day's light work; but we had fairly earned thern,
having worked hard for ten days, through rain,
cold, hunger, and fatigue, to no purpose. That

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 235

evening my home-coming to camp, with three
elk-tongues and a brace of ruffed grouse hung at
my belt, was most happy.

Next day it snowed, but we brought a pack-
pony to where the three great bulls lay, and took
their heads to camp ; the flesh was far too strong
to be worth taking, for it was just the height of
the rut.

This was the end of my hunt ; and a day later
Hofer and I, with two pack-ponies, made a rapid
push for the Upper Geyser Basin. We travelled
fast. The first day was gray and overcast, a cold
wind blowing strongly in our faces. Toward eve-
ning we came on a bull elk in a willow thicket ; he
was on his knees in a hollow, thrashing and beat-
ing the willows with his antlers. At dusk we
halted and went into camp, by some small pools
on the summit of the pass north of Red Mountain.
The elk were calling all around us. We pitched
our cozy tent, dragged great stumps for the fire,
cut evergreen boughs for our beds, watered the
horses, tethered them to improvised picket-pins
in a grassy glade, and then set about getting sup-
per ready. The wind had gone down, and snow
was falling thick in large, soft flakes; we were
evidently at the beginning of a heavy snowstorm.
All night we slept soundly in our snug tent. When
we arose at dawn there was a foot and a half of
snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling as

236 The Wilderness Hunter

fast as ever. There is no more tedious work than
striking camp in bad weather ; and it was over two
hours from the time we rose to the time we started.
It is sheer misery to untangle picket-lines and to
pack animals when the ropes are frozen; and by
the time we had loaded the two shivering, wincing
pack-ponies, and had bridled and saddled our own
riding-animals, our hands and feet were numb and
stiff with cold, though we were really hampered
by our warm clothing. My horse was a wild, ner-
vous roan, and as I swung carelessly into the sad-
dle, he suddenly began to buck before I got my
right leg over, and threw me off. My thumb was
put out of joint. I pulled it in again, and speedily
caught my horse in the dead timber. Then I
treated him as what the cowboys call a ''mean
horse," and mounted him carefully, so as not to
let him either buck or go over backward. How-
ever, his preliminary success had inspirited him,
and a dozen times that day he began to buck,
usually choosing a down grade, where the snow
was deep, and there was much fallen timber.

All day long we pushed steadily through the
cold, blinding snowstorm. Neither squirrels nor
rabbits were abroad; and a few Clarke's crows,
whisky-jacks, and chickadees were the only living
things we saw. At nightfall, chilled through, we
reached the Upper Geyser Basin. Here I met a
party of railroad surveyors and engineers, coming

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 237

in from their summer's field-work. One of them
lent me a saddle-horse and a pack-pony, and we
went on together, breaking our way through the
snow-choked roads to the Mammoth Hot Springs,
while Hofer took my own horses back to Ferguson.
I have described this hunt at length because,
though I enjoyed it particularly on accoimt of the
comfort in which we travelled and the beauty
of the land, yet, in point of success in finding
and killing game, in value of trophies procured,
and in its alternations of good and bad luck,
it may fairly stand as the type of a dozen such
hunts I have made. Twice I have been much
more successful; the difference being due to
sheer luck, as I hunted equally hard in all three
instances. Thus on this trip I killed and saw
nothing but elk; yet the other members of the
party either saw, or saw fresh signs of, not only
blacktail deer, but sheep, bear, bison, moose,
cougar, and wolf. Now in 1889 I hunted over
almost precisely similar country, only farther to
the northwest, on the boundary between Idaho
and Montana, and, with the exception of sheep,
I stumbled on all the animals mentioned, and
white-goat in addition, so that my bag of twelve
head actually included eight species — much the
best bag I ever made, and the only one that could
really be called out of the common. In 1884, on a
trip to the Bighorn Mountains, I killed three bear,

238 The Wilderness Hunter

six elk, and six deer. In laying in the winter stock
of meat for my ranch I often far excelled these
figures as far as mere numbers went ; but on no
other regular hunting trip, where the quality and
not the quantity of the game was the prime con-
sideration, have I ever equalled them; and on
several where I worked hardest I hardly averaged
a head a week. The occasional days or weeks of
phenomenal luck are more than earned by the
many others where no luck whatever follows the
very hardest work. Yet, if a man hunts with
steady resolution, he is apt to strike enough lucky
days amply to repay him.

On this Shoshone trip I fired fifty-eight shots.
In preference to using the knife I generally break
the neck of an elk which is still struggling ; and I
fire at one as long as it can stand, preferring to
waste a few extra bullets, rather than see an occa-
sional head of game escape. In consequence of
these two traits the nine elk I got (two running at
sixty and eighty yards, the others standing, at
from thirty to a hundred) cost me twenty-three
bullets; and I missed three shots — all three, it is
but fair to say, difficult ones. I also cut off the
heads of seventeen grouse, with twenty-two shots ;
and killed two ducks with ten shots — fifty-eight in
all. On the Bighorn trip I used a hundred and
two cartridges. On no other trip did I use fifty.

To me, still-hunting elk in the mountains, when

An Elk-Hunt at Two-Ocean Pass 239

they are calling, is one of the most attractive of
sports, not only because of the size and stately
beauty of the quarry and the grand nature of the
trophy, but because of the magnificence of the
scenery, and the stirring, manly, exciting nature
of the chase itself. It yields more vigorous enjoy-
ment than does lurking stealthily through the
grand but gloomy monotony of the marshy wood-
land where dwells the moose. The climbing
among the steep forest-clad and glade-strewn
motmtains is just difficult enough thoroughly to
test soundness in wind and limb, while without
the heart-breaking fatigue of white-goat hunting.
The actual grapple with an angry grisly is of course
far more full of strong, eager pleasure; but bear-
hunting is the most uncertain, and usually the
least productive, of sports.

As regards strenuous, vigorous work, and pleas-
urable excitement, the chase of the bighorn alone
stands higher. But the bighorn, grand beast of
the chase though he be, is surpassed in size, both
of body and of horns, by certain of the giant sheep
of Central Asia; whereas the wapiti is not only
the most stately and beautiful of American game
— far more so than the bison and moose, his only
rivals in size — but is also the noblest of the stag
kind throughout the world. Whoever kills him
has killed the chief of his race ; for he stands far
above his brethren of Asia and Europe.

CHAPTER XI
THE moose; the beast of the woodland

THE raoose is the giant of all deer ; and many
hunters esteem it the noblest of American
game. Beyond question, there are few
trophies more prized than the huge shovel horns
of this strange dweller in the cold northland forests.

I shot my first moose '\fter making several fruit-
less hunting trips with this special game in view.
The season I finally succeeded, it was only after
having hunted two or three weeks in vain among
the Bitter Root Mountains and the ranges lying
southeast of them.

I began about the first of September by making
a trial with my old hunting friend, Willis. We
speedily found a country where there were moose,
but of the animals themselves we never caught a
glimpse. We tried to kill them by hunting in the
same manner that we hunted elk; that is, by
choosing a place where there was sign, and going
carefully through it against or across the wind.
However, this plan failed; though at that very
time we succeeded in killing elk in this way, de-
voting one or two days to their pursuit. There

240

The Moose 241

were both elk and moose in the country, but they
were usually found in different kinds of ground,
though often close alongside one another. The
former went in herds, the cows, calves, and year-
lings by themselves, and they roamed through the
higher and more open forests, well up towards
timber line. The moose, on the contrary, were
found singly or in small parties, composed, at the
outside, of a bull, a cow, and her young of two
years ; for the moose is practically monogamous,
in strong contrast to the highly polygamous wapiti
and caribou.

The moose did not seem to care much whether
they lived among the summits of the mountains
or not, so long as they got the right kind of coimtry ;
for they were much more local in their distribution,
and at this season less given to wandering than
their kin with round horns. What they wished
was a cool, swampy region of very dense growth;
in the main chains of the northern Rockies even
the valleys are high enough to be cold. Of course
many of the moose lived on the wooded summits
of the lower ranges ; and most of them came down
lower in winter than in summer, following about
a fortnight after the elk ; but if in a large tract of
woods the cover was dense and the ground marshy,
though it was in a valley no higher than the herds
of the ranchmen grazed, or perchance even in
the immediate neighborhood of a small frontier

VOL. I. — 16.

242 The Wilderness Hunter

hamlet, then it might be chosen by some old bull
who wished to lie in seclusion till his horns were
grown, or by some cow with a calf to raise. Before
settlers came to this high mountain region of west-
em Montana, a moose would often thus live in an
isolated marshy tract surrounded by open country.
They grazed throughout the summer on marsh
plants, notably lily stems, and nibbled at the tops
of the very tall natural hay of the meadows. The
legs of the beast are too long and the neck too
short to allow it to graze habitually on short
grass ; yet in the early spring, when greedy for the
tender blades of young, green marsh grass, the
moose will often shuffle down on its knees to get
at them, and it will occasionally perform the same
feat to get a mouthful or two of snow in winter.

The moose which lived in isolated, exposed lo-
calities were speedily killed or driven away after
the incoming of settlers ; and at the time that we
hunted we found no sign of them until we reached
the region of continuous forest. Here, in a fort-
night's hunting, we found as much sign as we
wished, and plenty of it fresh; but the animals
themselves we not only never saw, but we never
so much as heard. Often after hours of careful
still-hunting or cautious tracking, we found the
footprints deep in the soft earth, showing where
our quarry had winded or heard us, and had noise-
lessly slipped away from the danger. It is aston-

The Moose 243

ishing how quietly a moose can steal through the
woods if it wishes : and it has what is to the hun-
ter a very provoking habit of making a half or
three quarters circle before lying down, and then
crouching with its head so turned that it can surely
perceive any pursuer who may follow its trail. We
tried every method to outwit the beasts. We at-
tempted to track them; we beat through likely
spots; sometimes we merely ''sat on a log" and
awaited events, by a drinking hole, meadow, mud
wallow, or other such place (a course of procedure
which often works well in still-hunting) ; but all
in vain.

Our main difficulty lay in the character of the
woods which the moose haunted. They were
choked and tangled to the last degree, consisting
of a mass of thick-growing conifers, with dead
timber strewn in every direction, and young
growth filling the spaces between the trunks. We
could not see twenty yards ahead of us, and it was
almost impossible to walk without making a
noise. Elk were occasionally found in these same
places; but usually they frequented more open
timber, where the hunting was beyond comparison
easier. Perhaps more experienced hunters would
have killed their game ; though in such cover the
best tracker and still-hunter alive cannot always
reckon on success with really wary animals. But
be this as it may, we, at any rate, were completely

244 The Wilderness Hunter

baffled, and I began to think that this moose-hunt,
like all my former ones, was doomed to end in
failure.

However, a few days later I met a crabbed old
trapper named Hank Griffin, who was going after
beaver in the mountains, and who told me that if
I would come with him he would show me moose.
I jumped at the chance, and he proved as good as
his word; though for the first two trials my ill
luck did not change.

At the time that it finally did change we had at
last reached a place where the moose were on fa-
vorable ground. A high, marshy valley stretched
for several miles between two rows of stony moun-
tains, clad with a forest of rather small fir-trees.
This valley was covered with reeds, alders, and
rank grass, and studded with little willow-bor-
dered ponds and island-like clumps of spruce and
graceful tamaracks.

Having surveyed the ground and found moose
sign the preceding afternoon, we were up betimes
in the cool morning to begin our hunt. Before
sunrise we were posted on a rocky spur of the foot-
hills, behind a mask of evergreens ; ourselves un-
seen, we overlooked all the valley, and we knew we
could see any animal which might be either feed-
ing away from cover or on its journey homeward
from its feeding-ground to its day-bed.

As it grew lighter we scanned the valley with

The Moose 245

increasing care and eagerness. The sun rose be-
hind us ; and almost as soon as it was up we made
out some large beast moving among the dwarf
willows beside a little lake half a mile in our front.
In a few minutes the thing walked out where the
bushes were thinner, and we saw that it was a
young bull moose browsing on the willow tops.
He had evidently nearly finished his breakfast,
and he stood idly for some moments, now and
then lazily cropping a mouthful of twig tips. Then
he walked off with great strides in a straight line
across the marsh, splashing among the wet water-
plants, and ploughing through boggy spaces with
the indifference begotten of vast strength and legs
longer than those of any other animal on this con-
tinent. At times he entered beds of reeds which
hid him from view, though their surging and bend-
ing showed the wake of his passage; at other
times he walked through meadows of tall grass,
the withered yellow stalks rising to his flanks,
while his body loomed above them, glistening
black and wet in the level sunbeams. Once he
stopped for a few moments on a rise of dry ground,
seemingly to enjoy the heat of the young sun ; he
stood motionless, save that his ears were continu-
ally pricked, and his head sometimes slightly
turned, showing that even in this remote land he
was on the alert. Once, with a somewhat awk-
ward motion, he reached his hind leg forward

246 The Wilderness Hunter

to scratch his neck. Then he walked forward
again into the marsh ; where the water was quite
deep, he broke into the long, stretching, springy
trot, which forms the characteristic gait of his
kind, churning the marsh water into foam. He
held his head straight forwards, the antlers resting
on his shoulders.

After a while he reached a spruce island, through
which he walked to and fro ; but evidently could
find therein no resting-place quite to his mind, for
he soon left and went on to another. Here after a
little wandering he chose a point where there was
some thick young growth, which hid him from
view when he lay down, though not when he stood.
After some turning he settled himself in his bed
just as a steer would.

He could not have chosen a spot better suited
for us. He was nearly at the edge of the morass,
the open space between the spruce clump where
he was lying and the rocky foothills being com-
paratively dry and not much over a couple of hun-
dred yards broad ; while some sixty yards from it,
and between it and the hills, was a httle hum-
mock, tufted with firs, so as to afford us just the
cover we needed. Keeping back from the edge of
the morass we were able to walk upright through
the forest, until we got to the point where he was
lying in a line with this little hummock. We then
dropped on our hands and knees, and crept over

The Moose 247

the soft, wet sward, where there w^as nothing to
make a noise. Wherever the ground rose at all we
crawled flat on our bellies. The air was still, for it
was a very calm morning.

At last we reached the hummock, and I got into
position for a shot, taking a final look at my faith-
ful 45-90 Winchester to see that all was in order.
Peering cautiously through the shielding ever-
greens, I at first could not make out where the
moose was lying, until my eye was caught by the
motion of his big ears, as he occasionally flapped
them lazily forward. Even then I could not see
his outline ; but I knew where he was, and having
pushed my rifle forward on the moss, I snapped a
dry twig to make him rise. My veins were thrill-
ing, and my heart beat with that eager, fierce ex-
citement known only to the hunter of big game,
and forming one of the keenest and strongest of the
many pleasures which with him go to make up
"the wild joy of living."

As the sound of the snapping twig smote his
ears the moose rose nimbly to his feet, with a
lightness on which one would not have reckoned
in a beast so heavy of body. He stood broadside
to me for a moment, his ungainly head slightly
turned, while his ears twitched and his nostrils
snuffed the air. Drawing a fine bead against his
black hide, behind his shoulder and two thirds
of his body's depth below his shaggy withers.

248 The Wilderness Hunter

I pressed the trigger. He neither flinched nor
reeled, but started with his regular ground-cover-
ing trot through the spruces ; yet I knew he was
mine, for the light blood sprang from both of his
nostrils, and he fell dying on his side before he had
gone thirty rods.

Later in the fall I was again hunting among the
lofty ranges which continue towards the south-
east the chain of the Bitter Root, between Idaho
and Montana. There were but two of us, and we
were travelling very light, each having but one
pack-pony and the saddle animal he bestrode. We
were high among the mountains, and followed
no regular trail. Hence our course was often one
of extreme difficulty. Occasionally, we took our
animals through the forest near timber line, where
the slopes were not too steep ; again we threaded
our way through a line of glades, or skirted the
foothills, in an open, park country; and now and
then we had to cross stretches of tangled mountain
forest, making but a few miles a day, at the cost
of incredible toil, and accomplishing even this
solely by virtue of the wonderful docility and sure-
footedness of the ponies, and of my companion's
skill with the axe and thorough knowledge of
woodcraft.

Late one cold afternoon we came out in a high
alpine valley in which there was no sign of any
man's having ever been before us. Down its mid-

The Moose 249

die ran a clear brook. On each side was a belt of
thick spruce forest, covering the lower flanks of
the mountains. The trees came down in points
and isolated clumps to the brook, the banks of
which were thus bordered with open glades, ren-
dering the travelling easy and rapid.

Soon after starting up this valley we entered a
beaver-meadow of considerable size. It was cov-
ered with lush, rank grass, and the stream wound
through it rather sluggishly in long curves, which
were fringed by a thick growth of dwarfed willows.
In one or two places it broadened into small ponds,
bearing a few lily-pads. This meadow had been
all tramped up by moose. Trails led hither and
thither through the grass, the willow twigs were
cropped off, and the muddy banks of the little
black ponds were indented by hoof -marks. Evi-
dently most of the lilies had been plucked. The
footprints were unmistakable; a moose's foot is
longer and slimmer than a caribou's, while on the
other hand it is much larger than an elk's, and a
longer oval in shape.

Most of the sign was old, this high alpine mea-
dow, surrounded by snow mountains, having
clearly been a favorite resort for moose in the
summer; but some enormous, fresh tracks told
that one or more old bulls were still frequenting
the place.

The light was already fading, and, of course,

250 The Wilderness Hunter

we did not wish to camp where we were, because
we would then certainly scare the moose. Ac-
cordingly we pushed up the valley for another
mile, through an open forest, the ground being
quite free from underbrush and dead timber, and
covered with a carpet of thick moss, in which the
feet sank noiselessly. Then we came to another
beaver-meadow, which offered fine feed for the
ponies. On its edge we hastily pitched camp, just
at dusk. We tossed down the packs in a dry
grove, close to the brook, and turned the tired
ponies loose in the meadow, hobbling the little
mare that carried the bell. The ground was
smooth. We threw a cross-pole from one to the
other of two young spruces, which happened to
stand handily, and from it stretched and pegged
out a piece of canvas, which we were using as a
shelter tent. Beneath this we spread our bedding,
laying under it the canvas sheets in which it had
been wrapped. There was still bread left over
from yesterday's baking, and in a few moments
the kettle was boiling and the frying-pan sizzHng,
while one of us skinned and cut into suitable pieces
two grouse we had knocked over on our march.
For fear of frightening the moose we built but a
small fire, and went to bed soon after supper,
being both tired and cold. Fortunately, what little
breeze there was blew up the valley.

At dawn I was awake, and crawled out of my

The Moose 251

buffalo bag, shivering and yawning. My com-
panion still slumbered heavily. White frost cov-
ered whatever had been left outside. The cold
was sharp, and I hurriedly slipped a pair of stout
moccasins on my feet, drew on my gloves and cap,
and started through the ghostly woods for the
meadow where we had seen the moose sign. The
tufts of grass were stiff with frost; black ice
skimmed the edges and quiet places of the little
brook.

I walked slowly, it being difficult not to make a
noise by cracking sticks or brushing against trees
in the gloom; but the forest was so open that it
favored me. When I reached the edge of the
beaver-meadow it was light enough to shoot,
though the front sight still glimmered indistinctly.
Streaks of cold red showed that the sun would
soon rise.

Before leaving the shelter of the last spruces I
halted to listen ; and almost immediately heard a
curious splashing sound from the middle of the
meadow, where the brook broadened into small
willow-bordered pools. I knew at once that a
moose was in one of these pools, wading about and
pulling up the water-lilies by seizing their slippery
stems in his lips, plunging his head deep under
water to do so. The moose love to feed in this
way in the hot months, when they spend all the
time they can in the water, feeding or lying down ;

252 The Wilderness Hunter

nor do they altogether abandon the habit even
when the weather is so cold that icicles form in
their shaggy coats.

Crouching, I stole noiselessly along the edge of
the willow thicket. The stream twisted through
it from side to side in zigzags, so that every few
rods I got a glimpse down a lane of black water.
In a minute I heard a slight splashing near me;
and on passing the next point of bushes I saw the
shadowy outlines of the moose's hindquarters,
standing in a bend of the water. In a moment
he walked onwards, disappearing. I ran forward
a couple of rods, and then turned in among the
willows, to reach the brook where it again bent
back towards me. The splashing in the water,
and the rustling of the moose's body against the
frozen twigs, drowned the little noise made by my
moccasined feet.

I strode out on the bank at the lower end of a
long narrow pool of water, dark and half frozen.
In this pool, half way down and facing me, but a
score of yards off, stood the mighty marsh beast,
strange and uncouth in look as some monster sur-
viving over from the Pliocene. His vast bulk
loomed black and vague in the dim gray dawn;
his huge antlers stood out sharply; columns of
steam rose from his nostrils. For several seconds
he fronted me motionless ; then he began to turn,
slowly, and as if he had a stiff neck. When quarter

The Moose 253

way round I fired into his shoulder; whereat he
reared and bounded on the bank with a great leap,
vanishing in the willows. Through these I heard
him crash like a whirlwind for a dozen rods ; then
down he fell, and when I reached the spot he had
ceased to struggle. The ball had gone through his
heart.

When a moose is thus surprised at close quar-
ters, it will often stand at gaze for a moment or two,
and then turn stiffly around until headed in the
right direction ; once thus headed aright it starts
off with extraordinary speed.

The flesh of the moose is very good; though
some deem it coarse. Old hunters, who always
like rich, greasy food, rank a moose's nose with a
beaver's tail as the chief of backwood delicacies;
personally, I never liked either. The hide of the
moose, like the hide of the elk, is of very poor
quality, much inferior to ordinary buckskin;
caribou hide is the best of all, especially when
used as webbing for snow-shoes.

The moose is very fond of frequenting swampy
woods throughout the stimmer, and indeed late
into the fall. These swampy woods are not neces-
sarily in the lower valleys, some being found very
high among the mountains. By preference, it
haunts those containing lakes, where it can find
the long lily-roots of which it is so fond, and where
it can escape the torment of the mosquitoes and

254 The Wilderness Hunter

deer-flies by lying completely submerged save for
its nostrils. It is a bold and good swimmer,
readily crossing lakes of large size; but it is of
course easily slain if discovered by canoe-men
while in the water. It travels well through bogs,
but not as well as the caribou ; and it will not ven-
ture on ice at all if it can possibly avoid it.

After the rut begins the animals roam every-
where through the woods; and where there are
hardwood forests the winter-yard is usually made
among them, on high ground, away from the,
swamps. In the mountains the deep snows drive
the moose, like all other game, down to the lower
valleys, in hard winters. In the summer it occa-
sionally climbs to the very summits of the wooded
ranges, to escape the flies; and it is said that in
certain places where wolves are plenty the cows
retire to the tops of the mountains to calve. More
often, however, they select some patch of very
dense cover, in a swamp or by a lake, for this pur-
pose. Their ways of life of course vary with the
nature of the country they frequent. In the tow^er-
ing chains of the Rockies, clad in som^bre and un-
broken evergreen forests, their habits, in regard
to winter and summer homes, and choice of places
of seclusion for cows with young calves and bulls
growing their antlers, differ from those of their
kind which haunt the comparatively low, hilly,
lake-studded country of Maine and Nova Scotia,

The Moose 255

where the forests are of birch, beech, and maple,
mixed with the pine, spruce, and hemlock.

The moose, being usually monogamous, is never
found in great herds like the wapiti and caribou.
Occasionally a troop of fifteen or twenty individ-
uals may be seen, but this is rare ; more often it
is found singly, in pairs, or in family parties, com-
posed of a bull, a cow, and two or more calves and
yearlings. In yarding, two or more such families
may unite to spend the winter together in an un-
usually attractive locality; and during the rut
many bulls are sometimes found together, perhaps
following the trail of a cow in single file.

In the fall, winter, and early spring, and in cer-
tain places during summer, the moose feeds prin-
cipally by browsing, though always willing to
vary its diet by mosses, lichens, fungi, and ferns.
In the eastern forests, with their abundance of
hardwood, the birch, maple, and moose-wood
form its favorite food. In the Rocky Mountains,
where the forests are almost purely evergreen, it
feeds on such willows, alders, and aspens as it can
fimd, and also, when pressed by necessity, on bal-
sam, fir, spruce, and very young pine. It peels
the bark between its hard palate and sharp lower
teeth, to a height of seven or eight feet; these
"peelings" form conspicuous moose signs. It
crops the juicy, budding twigs and stem tops to
the same height; and if the tree is too tall it

256 The Wilderness Hunter

"rides" it, that is, straddles the slender trunk
with its fore legs, pushing it over and walking up
it until the desired branches are within reach. No
beast is more destructive to the young growth of
a forest than the moose. Where much persecuted,
it feeds in the late evening, early morning, and by
moonlight. Where rarely disturbed, it passes the
day much as cattle do, alternately resting and
feeding for two or three hours at a time.

Young moose, when caught, are easily tamed,
and are very playful, delighting to gallop to and
fro, kicking, striking, butting, and occasionally
making grotesque faces. As they grow old they
are apt to become dangerous, and even their play
takes the form of a mock fight. Some lumbermen
I knew on the Aroostook, in Maine, once captured
a young moose, and put it in a pen of logs. A few
days later they captured another, somewhat
smaller, and put it in the same pen, thinking the
first would be grateful at having a companion.
But if it was it dissembled its feelings, for it
promptly fell on the unfortunate newcomer and
killed it before it could be rescued.

During the rut the bulls seek the cows far and
wide, uttering continually throughout the night a
short, loud roar, which can be heard at a distance
of four or five miles ; the cows now and then re-
spond with low, plaintive bellows. The bulls also
thrash the tree-trunks with their horns, and paw

The Moose 257

big holes in soft ground; and when two rivals
come together at this season they fight with the
most desperate fury. It is chiefly in these battles
with one another that the huge antlers are used;
in contending with other foes they strike terrible
blows with their fore hoofs, and also sometimes
lash out behind like a horse. The bear occasion-
ally makes a prey of the moose ; the cougar is a
more dangerous enemy in the few districts where
both animals are found at all plentifully ; but next
to man its most dreaded foe is the big timber wolf,
that veritable scourge of all animals of the deer
kind. Against all of these the moose defends it-
self valiantly ; a cow with a calf and a rutting bull
being especially dangerous opponents. In deep
snows through which the great deer floimders
while its adversary runs lightly on the crust, a
single wolf may overcome and slaughter a big bull
moose; but with a fair chance, no one or two
wolves would be a match for it. Desperate com-
bats take place before a small pack of wolves can
master the shovel-homed quarry, unless it is taken
at a hopeless disadvantage; and in these battles
the prowess of the moose is shown by the fact that
it is no unusual thing for it to kill one or more of
the ravenous throng ; generally, by a terrific blow
of the fore leg, smashing a wolf's skull or breaking
its back. I have known of several instances of
wolves being found dead, having perished in this

VOL. I. — 17.

258 The Wilderness Hunter

manner. Still the battle usually ends the other
way, the wolves being careful to make the attack
with the odds in their favor; and even a small
pack of the ferocious brutes will in a single winter
often drive the moose completely out of a given
district. Both cougar and bear generally reckon
on taking the moose unawares, when they jump
on it. In one case that came to my knowledge a
black bear was killed by a cow moose whose calf
he had attacked.

In the northeast a favorite method of hunting
the moose is by '' calling" the bulls in the rutting
season, at dawn or nightfall ; the caller imitating
their cries through a birch-bark trumpet. If the
animals are at all wary, this kind of sport can
only be carried on in still weather, as the approach-
ing bull always tries to get the wind of the caller.
It is also sometimes slain by fire-hunting, from a
canoe, as the deer are killed in the Adirondacks.
This, however, is but an ignoble sport ; and to kill
the animal while it is swimming in a lake is worse.
However, there is sometimes a spice of excitement
even in these unworthy methods of the chase ; for
a truculent moose will do its best, with hoofs and
horns, to upset the boat.

The true way to kill the noble beast, however, is
by fair still-hunting. There is no grander sport
than still-hunting the moose, whether in the vast
pine and birch forests of the northeast, or among

The Moose 259

the stupendous mountain masses of the Rockies.
The moose has wonderfully keen nose and ears,
though its eyesight is not remarkable. Most hunt-
ers assert that he is the wariest of all game, and
the most difficult to kill. I have never been quite
satisfied that this was so ; it seems to me that the
nature of the ground wherein it dwells helps it
even more than do its own sharp senses. It is true
that I made many trips in vain before killing my
first moose ; but then I had to hunt through tan-
gled timber, where I could hardly move a step
without noise, and could never see thirty yards
ahead. If moose were found in open park-like
forests, like those where I first killed elk, on the
Bighorn Mountains, or among brushy coulies and
bare hills, like the Little Missouri Bad Lands,
where I first killed blacktail deer, I doubt whether
they would prove especially difficult animals to
bag. My own experience is much too limited to
allow me to speak with any certainty on the
point; but it is borne out by what more skilled
hunters have told me. In the Big Hole Basin, in
southwest Montana, moose were quite plentiful in
the late 'seventies. Two or three of the old set-
tlers, whom I know as veteran hunters and trust-
worthy men, have told me that in those times the
moose were often found in very accessible locali-
ties ; and that when such was the case they were
quite as easily killed as elk. In fact, when run

26o The Wilderness Hunter

across by accident they frequently showed a certain
clumsy slowness of apprehension which amounted
to downright stupidity. One of the most suc-
cessful moose-hunters I know is Colonel Cecil
Clay, of the Department of Law, in Washington ;
he it was who killed the moose composing the fine
group mounted by Mr. Hornaday, in the National
Museum. Colonel Clay lost his right arm in the
Civil War; but is an expert rifle shot nevertheless,
using a short, light forty-four calibre old-style
Winchester carbine. With this weapon he has
killed over a score of moose, by fair still-hunting ;
and he tells me that on similar ground he con-
siders it if anything rather less easy to still-hunt
and kill a whitetail deer than it is to kill a moose.

My friend Colonel James Jones killed two moose
in a day in northwestern Wyoming, not far from
the Tetons ; he was alone when he shot them, and
did not find them especially wary. Ordinarily,
moose are shot at fairly close range ; but another
friend of mine, Mr. E. P. Rogers, once dropped
one with a single bullet at a distance of nearly
three hundred yards. This happened by Bridger's
Lake, near Two-Ocean Pass.

The moose has a fast walk, and its ordinary gait
when going at any speed is a slashing trot. Its long
legs give it a wonderful stride, enabling it to clear
down timber and high obstacles of all sorts with-
out altering its pace. It also leaps well. If much

The Moose 261

pressed or startled it breaks into an awkward gal-
lop, which is quite fast for a few hundred yards,
but which speedily tires it out. After being dis-
turbed by the hunter a moose usually trots a long
distance before halting.

One thing which renders the chase of the moose
particularly interesting is the fact that there is in
it on rare occasions a spice of peril. Under certain
circumstances it may be called dangerous quarry,
being, properly speaking, the only animal of the
deer kind which ever fairly deserves the title. In
a hand-to-hand grapple an elk or caribou, or even
under exceptional circumstances a blacktail or a
whitetail, may show itself an ugly antagonist ; and
indeed a maddened elk may for a moment take the
offensive; but the moose is the only one of the
tribe with which this attitude is at all common.
In bodily strength and capacity to do harm it sur-
passes the elk ; and in temper it is far more savage
and more apt to show fight when assailed by man ;
exactly as the elk in these respects surpasses the
common deer. Two hunters with whom I was
well acquainted once wintered between the Wind
River Mountains and the Three Tetons, many
years ago, in the days of the buffalo. They lived
on game, killing it on snow-shoes — for the most
part wapiti and deer, but also bison, and one
moose, though they saw others. The wapiti bulls
kept their antlers two months longer than the

262 The Wilderness Hunter

moose; nevertheless, when chased they rarely
made an effort to use them, while the hornless
moose displayed far more pugnacity, and also ran
better through the deep snow. The winter was
very severe, the snows were heavy and the crusts
hard ; so that the hunters had little trouble in over-
taking their game, although — being old mountain-
men, and not hide-hunters — they killed only what
was needed. Of course, in such hunting they came
very close to the harried game, usually after a
chase of from twenty minutes to three hours.
They found that the ordinary deer would scarcely
charge under any circumstances ; that among the
wapiti it was only now and then that individuals
would turn upon their pursuers — though they
sometimes charged boldly ; but that both the bison
and especially the moose when worried and ap-
proached too near, would often turn to bay and
make charge after charge in the most resolute man-
ner, so that they had to be approached with some
caution.

Under ordinary conditions, however, there is
very little danger, indeed, of a moose charging. A
charge does not take place once in a hundred times
when the moose is killed by fair still-hunting ; and
it is altogether exceptional for those who assail
them from boats or canoes to be put in jeopardy.
Even a cow moose, with her calf, will run if she
has the chance; and a rutting bull will do the

The Moose 263

same. Such a bull when wounded may walk
slowly forward, grunting savagely, stamping with
his fore feet, and slashing the bushes with his
antlers ; but, if his antagonist is any distance off,
he rarely actually runs at him. Yet there are now
and then found moose prone to attack on slight
provocation ; for these great deer differ as widely
as men in courage and ferocity. Occasionally a
hunter is charged in the fall when he has lured the
game to him by calling, or when he has wounded
it after a stalk. In one well-authenticated in-
stance which was brought to my attention, a settler
on the left bank of the St. John's, in New Bruns-
wick, was tramped to death by a bull moose which
he had called to him and wounded. A New Yorker
of my acquaintance. Dr. Merrill, was charged
under rather peculiar circumstances. He stalked
and mortally wounded a bull which promptly ran
towards him. Between them was a gully in which
it disappeared. Immediately afterwards, as he
thought, it reappeared on his side of the gully, and
with a second shot he dropped it. Walking for-
ward, he found to his astonishment that with his
second bullet he had killed a cow moose ; the bull
lay dying in the gully, out of which he had scared
the cow by his last rush.

However, speaking broadly, the danger to the
still-hunter engaged in one of the legitimate
methods of the chase is so small that it may be

264 The Wilderness Hunter

disregarded ; for he usually kills his game at some
little distance, while the moose, as a rule, only at-
tacks if it has been greatly worried and angered,
and if its pursuer is close at hand. When a moose
is surprised and shot at by a hunter some way off,
its one thought is of flight. Hence, the hunters
who are charged by moose are generally those who
follow them during the late winter and early spring,
when the animals have yarded and can be killed
on snow-shoes, — by "crusting," as it is termed, —
a very destructive and often a very unsportsman-
like species of chase.

If the snowfall is very light, moose do not yard
at all ; but in a hard winter they begin to make
their yards in December. A ''yard" is not, as
some people seem to suppose, a trampled-down
space, with definite boundaries ; the term merely
denotes the spot which a moose has chosen for its
winter home, choosing it because it contains plenty
of browse in the shape of young trees and saplings,
and perhaps also because it is sheltered to some
extent from the fiercest winds and heaviest snow-
drifts. The animal travels to and fro across this
space in straight lines and irregular circles after
food, treading in its own footsteps, where practic-
able. As the snow steadily deepens, these lines of
travel become beaten paths. There results finally
a space half a mile square — sometimes more, some-
times very much less, according to the lay of the

The Moose 265

land, and the number of moose yarding together
— where the deep snow is seamed in every direc-
tion by a network of narrow paths along which a
moose can travel at speed, its back level with the
snow roimd about. Sometimes, when moose are
very plenty, many of these yards lie so close to-
gether that the beasts can readily make their way
from one to another. When such is the case, the
most expert snow-shoer, under the most favorable
conditions, cannot overtake them, for they can
then travel very fast through the paths, keeping
their gait all day. In the early decades of the
present century, the first settlers in Aroostook
County, Maine, while moose-hunting in winter,
were frequently baffled in this manner.

When hunters approach an isolated yard the
moose immediately leave it and run off through
the snow. If there is no crust, and if their long
legs can reach the ground, the snow itself impedes
them but little, because of their vast strength and
endurance. Snowdrifts, which render an ordinary
deer absolutely helpless, and bring even an elk to
a standstill, offer no impediment whatever to a
moose. If, as happens very rarely, the loose snow
is of such depth that even the stilt-like legs of the
moose cannot touch solid earth, it flounders and
struggles forward for a little time, and then sinks
exhausted ; for a caribou is the only large animal
which can travel under such conditions. If there

266 The Wilderness Hunter

be a crust, even though the snow is not remark-
ably deep, the labor of the moose is vastly in-
creased, as it breaks through at every step, cutting
its legs and exhausting itself. A caribou, on the
other hand, will go across a crust as well as a man
on snow-shoes, and can never be caught by the
latter, save under altogether exceptional conditions
of snowfall and thaw.

" Crusting," or following game on snow-shoes, is,
as the name implies, almost always practised after
the middle of February, when thaws begin, and the
snow crusts on top. The conditions for success in
crusting moose and deer are very different. A
crust through which a moose would break at every
stride may carry a running deer without mishap ;
while the former animal would trot at ease through
drifts in which the latter would be caught as if in
a quicksand.

Hunting moose on snow, therefore, may be, and
very often is, mere butchery ; and because of this
possibility or probability, and also because of the
fact that it is by far the most destructive kind of
hunting, and is carried on at a season when the
bulls are hornless and the cows heavy with calf,
it is rigidly and properly forbidden wherever there
are good game laws. Yet this kind of hunting
may also be carried on under circumstances which
render it if not a legitimate, yet a most exciting
and manly sport, only to be followed by men of

The Moose 267

tried courage, hardihood, and skill. This is not
because it ever necessitates any skill whatever in
the use of the rifle, or any particular knowledge of
hunting-craft; but because under the conditions
spoken of, the hunter must show great endurance
and resolution, and must be an adept in the use of
snow-shoes.

It all depends upon the depth of the snow and
the state of the crust. If when the snow is very
deep there comes a thaw, and if it then freezes
hard, the moose are overtaken and killed with
ease; for the crust cuts their legs, they sink to
their bellies at every plunge, and speedily become
so worn out that they can no longer keep ahead of
any man who is even moderately skilful in the use
of snow-shoes; though they do not, as deer so
often do, sink exhausted after going a few rods
from their yard. Under such circumstances a few
hardy hunters or settlers, who are perfectly reck-
less in slaughtering game, may readily kill all the
moose in a district. It is a kind of hunting which
just suits the ordinary settler, who is hardy and
enduring, but knows little of hunting-craft proper.

If the snow is less deep, or the crust not so heavy,
the moose may travel for scores of miles before it
is overtaken; and this even though the crust be
strong enough to bear a man wearing snow-shoes
without breaking. The chase then involves the
most exhausting fatigue. Moreover, it can be

268 The Wilderness Hunter

carried on only by those who are very skilful in
the use of snow-shoes. These snow-shoes are of two
kinds. In the northeast, and in the most tangled
forests of the northwest, the webbed snow-shoes
are used ; on the bare mountain-sides, and in the
open forests of the Rockies, the long, narrow
wooden skees or Norwegian snow-skates are pre-
ferred, as upon them men can travel much faster,
though they are less handy in thick timber. Hav-
ing donned his snow-shoes and struck the trail of a
moose, the hunter may have to follow it three
days if the snow is of only ordinary depth, with a
moderate crust. He shuffles across the snow with-
out halt while daylight lasts, and lies down where-
ever he happens to be when night strikes him,
probably with a little frozen bread as his only
food. The hunter thus goes through inordinate
labor, and suffers from exposure ; not infrequently
his feet are terribly cut by the thongs of the snow-
shoes, and become sore and swollen, causing great
pain. When overtaken after such a severe chase,
the moose is usually so exhausted as to be unable
to make any resistance; in all likelihood it has
run itself to a standstill. Accordingly, the quality
of the firearms makes but little difference in this
kind of hunting. Many of the most famous old
moose-hunters of Maine, in the long past days,
before the Civil War, when moose were plenty
there, used what were known as "three-dollar'*

The Moose 269

guns; light, single-barrelled smooth-bores. One
whom I knew used a flint-lock musket, a relic of
the War of 181 2. Another in the course of an
exhausting three days' chase lost the lock of his
cheap percussion-cap gim ; and when he overtook
the moose he had to explode the cap by hammer-
ing it with a stone.

It is in ''crusting," when the chase has lasted
but a comparatively short time, that moose most
frequently show fight ; for they are not cast into
a state of wild panic by a sudden and unlooked-for
attack by a man who is a long distance from them,
but, on the contrary, after being worried and
irritated, are approached very near by foes from
whom they have been fleeing for hours. Never-
theless, in the majority of cases even crusted
moose make not the slightest attempt at retalia-
tion. If the chase has been very long, or if the
depth of the snow and character of the crust are ex-
ceptionally disadvantageous to them, they are so
utterly done out, when overtaken, that they can-
not make a struggle, and may even be killed with
an axe. I know of at least five men who have
thus killed crusted moose with an axe ; one in the
Rocky Moimtains, one in Minnesota, three in
Maine.

But in ordinary snow a man who should thus
attempt to kill a moose would merely jeopardize
his own life ; and it is not an uncommon thing for

270 The Wilderness Hunter

chased moose, when closely approached by their
pursuers, even when the latter carry guns and are
expert snow-shoers, to charge them with such
ferocity as to put them in much peril. A brother
of one of my cow-hands, a man from Maine, was
once nearly killed by a cow-moose. She had been
in a yard with her last year's calf when started.
After two or three hours' chase he overtook them.
They were travelling in single file, the cow break-
ing her path through the snow, while the calf
followed close behind, and in his nervousness some-
times literally ran up on her. The man trotted
close alongside; but, before he could fire, the old
cow spun round and charged him, her mane bris-
tling and her green eyes snapping with rage. It
happened that just there the snow became shallow
and the moose gained so rapidly that the man, to
save his life, sprang up a tree. As he did so the
cow reared and struck at him, one fore foot catch-
ing in his snow-shoe and tearing it clear off, giving
his ankle a bad wrench. After watching him a
minute or two she turned and continued her flight ;
whereupon he climbed down the tree, patched up
his torn snow-shoe and limped after the moose,
which he finally killed.

An old hunter named Purvis told me of an ad-
venture of the kind, which terminated fatally. He
was himting near the Coeur d'Al^ne Mountains
with a mining prospector named Pingree; both

The Moose 271

were originally from New Hampshire. Late in
November there came a heavy fall of snow, deep
enough to soon bring a deer to a standstill, al-
though not so deep as to hamper a moose's move-
ments. The men bound on their skees and started
to the borders of a lake, to kill some blacktail. In
a thicket close to the lake's brink they suddenly
came across a bull moose — a lean old fellow, still
savage from the rut. Pingree, who was nearest,
fired at and wounded him; whereupon he rushed
straight at the man, knocked him down before he
could turn round on his skees, and began to pound
him with his terrible fore feet. Summoned by his
comrade's despairing cries, Purvis rushed round
the thickets, and shot the squealing, trampling
monster through the body, and immediately after
had to swing himself up a small tree to avoid its
furious rush. The moose did not turn after this
charge, but kept straight on, and was not seen
again. The wounded man was past all help, for
his chest was beaten in, and he died in a couple of
hours.

END OF VOLUME I

NEW LIBRARY EDITION

THE

WILDERNESS HUNTER

An Account of the big Game of the United States
AND ITS Chase with Horse, Hound and Rifle

BY

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE
PART II

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Zbc Ikntcfterbocftcr presa

Copyright, 1893

by

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO

Extermination of the bison — My brother and cousin take a
hunting trip in Texas — Hardships — Hunting on the Brazos —
Many buffalo slain — Following four bulls — A stampede —
Splitting the herd — Occasional charges — A Comanche war
party — Great herds on the Arkansas — Adventure of Clarence
King — The bison of the mountains — At the vanishing point
— A hunt for mountain bison — A trail discovered — Skilful
tracking — A band of six — Death of the bull — A camp in the
canyon 1-30

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK BEAR

Habits of the black bear — Holds his own well in the land —
The old hunters — Hunting bear with dogs — General Hamp-
ton's hunting — Black bear at bay — A bear catching mice and
chipmunks — Occasional raids on the farmyard — Their weight
— Those I have killed 3 1-41

CHAPTER III

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR

The king of American game — Varieties of the grisly —
Worthlessness of old hunters' opinions — Grisly contrasted
with black bear — Size — Habits in old times — Habits nowa-

VOL. II.

ni

iv Contents

days — Hibernating — Cattle-killing — Horse-killing — Range
cow repels bear — Bear kills sheep and hogs — Occasional raids
on game — Killing bison, elk, and moose — Eats carrion — Old
hes sometimes kill cubs — Usually eats roots and vegetables
— Fondness for berries — Its foes — Den — Fond of wallowing
— Shes and cubs — Trapping bears — Hunting them with dogs
— Ordinarily killed with rifle 42-79

CHAPTER IV

HUNTING THE GRISLY

Camp in the mountains — After the first snow — Trailing and
stalking a big bear — His death — Lying in camp — Stalking and
shooting a bear at a moose carcass — Lying in wait for a bear
by a dead elk — He comes late in the evening — Is killed — A
successful hunting trip — A quarrel — I start home alone — Get
lost on second day — Shot at a grisly — His resolute charge and
death — Danger in hunting the grisly — Exaggerated, but real
— Rogers charged — Difference in ferocity in different bears —
Dr. Merrill's queer experience — Tazewell Woody's adven-
tures— Various ways in which bears attack — Examples —
Men maimed and slain — Instances — Mr. Whitney's experience
— A bear killed on the round-up — Ferocity of old-time bears
— Occasional unprovoked attacks — A French trapper at-
tacked— Cowboys and bears — Killing them with a revolver —
Feat of General Jackson 80-127

CHAPTER V

THE COUGAR

Difficulty of killing the cougar — My own failures— Kill one
in the mountains — Hunting the cougar with hounds — Ex-
perience of General Wade Hampton and Colonel Cecil Clay —
"Hold on. Penny" — What the cougar preys on — Its haunts
— Its calls — Rarely turns on man — Occasionally dangerous —
Instances 128-142

Contents v

CHAPTER VI

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES

A trip in southern Texas — A ranch on the Frio — Roping
cattle — Extermination of the peccary — Odd habits — Occa-
sionally attacks unprovoked — We drive south to the Nueces
— Flower prairies — Semi-tropical landscape — Hunting on
horseback — Half-blood hounds — Find a small band of pec-
caries— Kill two — How they act when at bay — Their occa-
sional freaks 143-157

CHAPTER VII

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS

Old-time hunters rarely used dogs — The packs of the
southern planters — Coursing in the West — Hunting with
greyhounds near my ranch — ^Jack- rabbits, foxes, coyotes, an-
telope, and deer — An original sportsman of the prairies —
Colonel Williams's greyhounds — Riding on the plains — Cross-
country riding — Fox-hunting at Geneseo — A day with Mr.
Wadsworth's hounds — The Meadowbrook drag-hounds —
High jumping — A meet at Sagamore Hill — Fox-hunting and
fetishism — Prejudices of sportsmen, foreign and native —
Different styles of riding 158-187

CHAPTER VIII

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS

The wolf — Contrasted with coyote — Variations in color —
Former abundance — The riddle of its extermination — Inex-
plicable differences in habits between closely related species —
Size of wolf — Animals upon which it preys — Attacking cattle;
horses; other animals; foxes, dogs, and even coyotes — Rtms
down deer and antelope — Coyotes catch jack- rabbits — Wolves
around camp — A wolf shot — Wolf-hunting with hounds — An
overmatch for most dogs — Decimating a pack — Coursing

VI Contents

wolves with greyhounds — A hunt in the foothills — Rous-
ing the wolves — The chase — The worry — Death of both
wolves — Wolf-hounds near Fort Benton — Other packs — The
Sun River hounds — Their notable feats — Colonel Williams's
hounds 188-207

CHAPTER IX

IN COWBOY LAND

Development of archaic types of character — Cowboys and
hunters — Rough virtues and faults — Incidents — Hunting a
horse-thief — Tale of the ending of a desperado — Light-
hearted way of regarding "broke horses" — Hardness of the
life — Deaths from many causes — Fight of Indians with trap-
pers— The slaying of the Medicine Chief Sword- Bearer — Mad
feat and death of two Cheyenne braves , 208-261

CHAPTER X

HUNTING LORE

Game which ought not to be killed — Killing black bear
with a knife — Sports with rod and shotgun — Snow-shoeing
and mountaineering — American writers on outdoor life :
Burroughs, Thoreau, Audubon, Coues, etc. — American
hunting books — American writers on life in the wilderness :
Parkman, Irving, Cooper on pioneer life — American states-
men and soldiers devoted to the chase: Lincoln, Jackson,
Israel Putnam — A letter from Webster on trout-fishing —
Clay — Washington — Hunting Extracts from Washington's
diaries — Washington as a fox-hunter 262-282

Appendix 283

Index 289

THE

WILDERNESS HUNTER

THE WILDERNESS
HUNTER

CHAPTER I

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO

WHEN we became a nation, in 1776, the
buffaloes, the first animals to vanish
when the wilderness is settled, roved
to the crests of the mountains which mark the
western boundaries of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and
the Carolinas. They were plentiful in what are
now the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
But by the beginning of the present century they
had been driven beyond the Mississippi; and for
the next eighty years they formed one of the most
distinctive and characteristic features of existence
on the great plains. Their numbers were count-
less— incredible. In vast herds of hundreds of
thousands of individuals, they roamed from the
Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande and westward
to the Rocky Mountains. They furnished all the
means of livelihood to the tribes of Horse Indians,

VOL. II.— I.

2 The Wilderness Hunter

and to the curious population of French Metis, or
Half-breeds, on the Red River, as well as to those
dauntless and archetypical wanderers, the white
hunters and trappers. Their numbers slowly di-
minished, but the decrease was very gradual until
after the Civil War. They were not destroyed by
the settlers, but by the railways and the skin-
hunters.

After the ending of the Civil War, the work of
constructing trans-continental railway lines was
pushed forward with the utmost vigor. These
supplied cheap and indispensable, but hitherto
wholly lacking, means of transportation to the
hunters; and at the same time the demand for
buffalo robes and hides became very great, while
the enormous numbers of the beasts, and the com-
parative ease with which they were slaughtered,
attracted throngs of adventurers. The result was
such a slaughter of big game as the world had
never before seen; never before were so many
large animals of one species destroyed in so short
a time. Several million buffaloes were slain. In
fifteen years from the time the destruction fairly
began the great herds were exterminated. In all
probability there are not now, all told, five hun-
dred head of wild buffaloes on the American con-
tinent ; and no herd of a hundred individuals has
been in existence since 1884.

The first great break followed the building of

The Bison or American Buffalo 3

the Union Pacific railway. All the buffaloes of
the middle region were then destroyed, and the
others were split into two vast sets of herds, the
northern and the southern. The latter were de-
stroyed first, about 1878; the former not until
1883. My own chief experience with buffaloes
was obtained in the latter year, among small bands
and scattered individuals, near my ranch on the
Little Missouri ; I have related it elsewhere. But
two of my kinsmen were more fortimate, and took
part in the chase of these lordly beasts when the
herds still darkened the prairie as far as the eye
could see.

During the first two months of 1877, my brother
Elliott, then a lad not seventeen years old, made a
buffalo-hunt toward the edge of the Staked Plains
in northern Texas. He was thus in at the death of
the southern herds ; for all, save a few scattering
bands, were destroyed within two years of this
time. He was with my cousin, John Roosevelt,
and they went out on the range with six other ad-
venturers. It was a party of just such young men
as frequently drift to the frontier. All were short
of cash, and all were hardy, vigorous fellows,
eager for excitement and adventure. My brother
was much the youngest of the party, and the least
experienced; but he was well-grown, strong and
healthy, and very fond of boxing, wrestling, nm-
ning, riding, and shooting; moreover, he had

4 The Wilderness Hunter

served an apprenticeship in hunting deer and
turkeys. Their mess-kit, ammunition, bedding,
and provisions were carried in two prairie-wagons,
each drawn by four horses. In addition to the
teams they had six saddle-animals — all of them
shaggy, unkempt mustangs. Three or four dogs,
setters and half-bred greyhounds, trotted along
behind the wagons. Each man took his turn for
two days as teamster and cook; and there were
always two with the wagons, or camp, as the case
might be, while the other six were off hunting,
usually in couples. The expedition was undertaken
partly for sport and partly with the hope of profit ;
for, after purchasing the horses and wagons, none
of the party had any money left, and they were
forced to rely upon selling skins and hides, and,
when near the forts, meat.

They started on January 2d, and shaped their
course for the head-waters of the Salt Fork of the
Brazos, the centre of abundance for the great
buffalo herds. During the first few days they
were in the outskirts of the settled country, and
shot only small game — quail and prairie-fowl;
then they began to kill turkey, deer, and antelope.
These they swapped for flour and feed at the
ranches or squalid, straggling frontier towns. On
several occasions the hunters were lost, spending
the night out in the open, or sleeping at a ranch,
if one was found. Both towns and ranches were

The Bison or American Buffalo 5

filled with rough customers; all of my brother's
companions were muscular, hot-headed fellows;
and as a consequence they were involved in several
savage free fights, in which, fortunately, nobody
was seriously hurt. My brother kept a very brief
diary, the entries being fairly startling from their
conciseness. A number of times the mention of
their arrival, either at a halting-place, a little vil-
lage, or a rival buffalo-camp, is followed by the
laconic remark, "big fight," or *'big row"; but
once they evidently concluded discretion to be the
better part of valor, the entry for January 20th
being, "On the road — passed through Belknap —
too lively, so kept on to the Brazos — very late."
The buffalo-camps in particular were very jealous
of one another, each party regarding itself as hav-
ing exclusive right to the range it was the first to
find; and on several occasions this feeling came
near involving my brother and his companions in
serious trouble.

While slowly driving the heavy wagons to the
hunting-grounds they suffered the usual hardships
of plains travel. The weather, as in most Texas
winters, alternated between the extremes of heat
and cold. There had been little rain; in conse-
quence water was scarce. Twice they were forced
to cross wild, barren wastes, where the pools had
dried up, and they suffered terribly from thirst.
On the first occasion the horses were in good

6 The Wilderness Hunter

condition, and they travelled steadily, with only oc-
casional short halts, for over thirty-six hours, by
which time they were across the waterless country.
The journal reads: "January 27th. — Big hunt —
no water, and we left Quinn's blockhouse this
morning 3 a.m. — on the go all night — hot. Janu-
ary 28th. — No water — hot — at seven we struck
water, and by eight Stinking Creek — grand 'hur-
rah.'" On the second occasion, the horses were
weak and travelled slowly, so the party went
forty-eight hours without drinking. "February
19th. — Pulled on twenty-one miles — trail bad —
freezing night, no water, and wolves after our
fresh meat. 20th. — Made nineteen miles over
prairie; again only mud, no water, freezing hard
— frightful thirst. 21st. — ^Thirty miles to Clear
Fork, fresh water." These entries were hurriedly
jotted down at the time, by a boy who deemed it
unmanly to make any especial note of hardship or
suffering; but every plainsman will understand
the real agony implied in working hard for two
nights, one day, and portions of two others, with-
out water, even in cool weather. During the last
few miles the staggering horses were only just able
to drag the lightly loaded wagon, — for they had
but one with them at the time, — while the men
plodded along in sullen silence, their mouths so
parched that they could hardly utter a word. My
own hunting and ranching were done in the north.

The Bison or American Buffalo 7

where there is more water ; so I have never had a
similar experience. Once I took a team in thirty-
six hours across a country where there was no
water; but by good luck it rained heavily in the
night, so that the horses had plenty of wet grass,
and I caught the rain in my slicker, and so had
enough water for myself. Personally, I have but
once been as long as twenty-six hours without
water.

The party pitched their permanent camp in a
canyon of the Brazos known as Canyon Blanco.
The last few days of their journey they travelled
beside the river through a veritable hunter's para-
dise. The drought had forced all the animals to
come to the larger watercourses, and the country
was literally swarming with game. Every day,
and all day long, the wagons travelled through the
herds of antelopes that grazed on every side, while
whenever they approached the canyon brink
bands of deer started from the timber that fringed
the river's course ; often, even the deer wandered
out on the prairie with the antelope. Nor was
the game shy; for the hunters, both red and
white, followed only the buffaloes, until the huge,
shaggy herds were destroyed, and the smaller
beasts were in consequence but little molested.

Once my brother shot five antelopes from a
single stand, when the party were short of fresh
venison ; he was out of sight and to leeward, and

8 The Wilderness Hunter

the antelopes seemed confused rather than alarmed
at the rifle-reports and the fall of their compan-
ions. As was to be expected where game was so
plenty, wolves and coyotes also abounded. At
night they surrounded the camp, wailing and
howling in a kind of shrieking chorus through-
out the hours of darkness; one night they came
up so close that the frightened horses had to be
hobbled and guarded. On another occasion a
large wolf actually crept into camp, where he
was seized by the dogs, and the yelling, writhing
knot of combatants rolled over one of the sleepers ;
finally, the long-toothed prowler managed to
shake himself loose, and vanished in the gloom.
One evening they were almost as much startled
by a visit of a different kind. They were just
finishing supper when an Indian stalked suddenly
and silently out of the surrounding darkness,
squatted down in the circle of firelight, remarked
gravely, ''Me Tonk," and began helping himself
from the stew. He belonged to the friendly tribe
of Tonkaways, so his hosts speedily recovered
their equanimity ; as for him, he had never lost
his, and he sat eating by the fire until there was
literally nothing left to eat. The panic caused
by his appearance was natural; for at that time
the Comanches were a scourge to the buffalo-
hunters, ambushing them and raiding their camps ;
and several bloody fights had taken place.

The Bison or American Bufifalo 9

Their camp had been pitched near a deep pool
or water-hole. On both sides the blufEs rose like
walls, and where they had crumbled and lost their
sheemess the vast buffalo herds, passing and re-
passing for countless generations, had worn fur-
rowed trails so deep that the backs of the beasts
were but little above the surrounding soil. In the
bottom, and in places along the crests of the cliffs
that hemmed in the canyon-like valley, there
were groves of tangled trees, tenanted by great
flocks of wild turkeys. Once my brother made
two really remarkable shots at a pair of these
great birds. It was at dusk, and they were flying
directly overhead from one cliff to the other. He
had in his hand a thirty-eight calibre Ballard
rifle, and, as the gobblers winged their way heavily
by, he brought both down with two successive
bullets. This was of course mainly a piece of
mere luck; but it meant good shooting, too. The
Ballard was a very accurate, handy little weapon ;
it belonged to me, and was the first rifle I ever
owned or used. With it I had once killed a deer,
the only specimen of large game I had then shot ;
and I presented the rifle to my brother when he
went to Texas. In our happy ignorance we
deemed it quite good enough for buffalo or any-
thing else ; but out on the plains my brother soon
foimd himself forced to procure a heavier and
more deadly weapon.

lo The Wilderness Hunter

When camp was pitched the horses were turned
loose to graze and refresh themselves after their
trying journey, during which they had lost flesh
wofully. They were watched and tended by
the two men who were always left in camp, and,
save on rare occasions, were only used to haul in
the buffalo hides. The camp-guards for the time
being acted as cooks; and, though coffee and
flour both ran short and finally gave out, fresh
meat of every kind was abundant. The camp
was never without buffalo-beef, deer and ante-
lope venison, wild turkeys, prairie-chickens, quails,
ducks, and rabbits. The birds were simply
"potted," as occasion required; when the quarry
was deer or antelope, the hunters took the dogs
with them to run down the wounded animals.
But almost the entire attention of the hunters
was given to the buffalo. After an evening spent
in lounging round the camp-fire and a sound
night's sleep, wrapped in robes and blankets,
they would get up before daybreak, snatch a
hurried breakfast, and start off in couples through
the chilly dawn. The great beasts were very
plentiful; in the first day's hunt twenty were
slain ; but the herds were restless and ever on the
move. Sometimes they would be seen right by
the camp, and again it would need an all-day's
tramp to find them. There was no difficulty in
spying them — the chief trouble with forest game ;

The Bison or American Buffalo 1 1

for on the prairie a biiffalo makes no effort to
hide, and its black, shaggy bulk looms up as far as
the eye can see. Sometimes they were fotmd in
small parties of three or four individuals, some-
times in bands of about two hundred, and again
in great herds of many thousands; and solitary
old bulls, expelled from the herds, were common.
If on broken land, among hills and ravines, there
was not much difficulty in approaching from the
leeward; for, though the sense of smell in the
buffalo is very acute, they do not see well at a
distance through their overhanging frontlets of
coarse and matted hair. If, as was generally the
case, they were out on the open, rolling prairie,
the stalking was far more difficult. Every hol-
low, every earth hummock and sage bush had to
be used as cover. The hunter wriggled through
the grass flat on his face, pushing himself along
for perhaps a quarter of a mile by his toes and
fingers, heedless of the spiny cactus. When near
enough to the huge, unconscious quarry, the
hunter began firing, still keeping himself carefully
concealed. If the smoke was blown away by the
wind, and if the buffaloes caught no glimpse of the
assailant, they would often stand motionless and
stupid until many of their number had been slain,
the hunter being careful not to fire too high, aim-
ing just behind the shoulder, about a third of the
way up the body, that his bullet might go through

12 The Wilderness Hunter

the lungs. Sometimes, even after they saw the
man, they would act as if confused and panic-
struck, huddling together and staring at the
smoke-puffs; but generally they were off at a
lumbering gallop as soon as they had an idea of
the point of danger. When once started, they
ran for many miles before halting, and their pur-
suit on foot was extremely laborious.

One morning my brother and cousin had been
left in camp as guards. They were sitting idly
warming themselves in the first sunbeams, when
their attention was sharply drawn to four buffa-
loes that were coming to the pool to drink. The
beasts came down a game trail, a deep rut in
the bluff, fronting where they were sitting, and
they did not dare to stir for fear of being dis-
covered. The buffaloes walked into the pool,
and after drinking their fill stood for some time
with the water running out of their mouths, idly
lashing their sides with their short tails, enjoying
the bright warmth of the early sunshine; then,
with much splashing and the gurgling of soft
mud, they left the pool and clambered up the
bluff with unwieldy agility. As soon as they
turned, my brother and cousin ran for their rifles,
but before they got back the buffaloes had crossed
the bluff crest. Climbing after them, the two
hunters found, when they reached the summit,
that their game, instead of halting, had struck

The Bison or American Buffalo 13

straight off across the prairie at a slow lope,
doubtless intending to rejoin the herd they had
left. After a moment's consultation the men
went in pursuit, excitement overcoming their
knowledge that they ought not, by rights, to
leave camp. They struck a steady trot, following
the animals by sight until they passed over a
knoll, and then trailing them. Where the grass
was long, as it was for the first four or five miles,
this was a work of no difficulty, and they did not
break their gait, only glancing now and then at
the trail. As the sun rose and the day became
warm, their breathing grew quicker; and the
sweat rolled off their faces as they ran across the
rough prairie sward, up and down the long in-
clines, now and then shifting their heavy rifles
from one shoulder to the other. But they were
in good training, and they did not have to halt.
At last they reached stretches of bare ground,
sun-baked and grassless, where the trail grew
dim; and here they had to go very slowly, care-
fully examining the faint dents and marks made
in the soil by the heavy hoofs, and unravelling
the trail from the mass of old footmarks. It was
tedious work, but it enabled them to completely
recover their breath by the time that they again
struck the grassland; and but a few hundred
yards from its edge, in a slight hollow, they saw
the four buffaloes just entering a herd of fifty or

14 The Wilderness Hunter

sixty that were scattered out grazing. The herd
paid no attention to the newcomers, and these
immediately began to feed greedily. After a
whispered consultation, the two hunters crept
back, and made a long circle that brought them
well to leeward of the herd, in line with a slight
rise in the grotind. They then crawled up to
this rise and, peering through the tufts of tall,
rank grass, saw the unconscious beasts a hundred
and twenty-five or fifty yards away. They fired
together, each mortally wounding his animal, and
then, rushing in as the herd halted in confusion,
and following them as they ran, impeded by
numbers, hurry, and panic, they eventually got
three more.

On another occasion the same two hunters
nearly met with a frightful death, being over-
taken by a vast herd of stampeded buffaloes. All
animals that go in herds are subject to these in-
stantaneous attacks of uncontrollable terror, un-
der the influence of which they become perfectly
mad, and rush headlong in dense masses on any
form of death. Horses, and more especially cattle,
often suffer from stampedes ; it is a danger against
which the cowboys are compelled to be perpet-
ually on guard. A band of stampeded horses,
sweeping in mad terror up a valley, will dash
against a rock or tree with such violence as to
leave several dead animals at its base, while the

The Bison or American Buffalo 15

survivors race on without halting ; they will over-
turn and destroy tents and wagons, and a man
on foot caught in the rush has but a small chance
for his life. A buffalo stampede is much worse —
or rather was much worse, in the old days — be-
cause of the great weight and immense numbers
of the beasts, which, in a fury of heedless terror,
plunged over cliffs and into rivers, and bore down
whatever was in their path. On the occasion in
question, my brother and cousin were on their
way homeward. They were just mounting one
of the long, low swells, into which the prairie was
broken, when they heard a low, muttering, rum-
bling noise, like far-off thunder. It grew steadily
louder, and, not knowing what it meant, they
hurried forward to the top of the rise. As they
reached it, they stopped short in terror and
amazement, for before them the whole prairie
was black with madly rushing buffaloes.

Afterward they learned that another couple of
hunters, four or five miles off, had fired into and
stampeded a large herd. This herd, in its rush,
gathered others, all thundering along together in
uncontrollable and increasing panic.

The surprised hunters were far away from any
broken ground or other place of refuge, while the
vast herd of huge, plunging, maddened beasts was
charging straight down on them, not a quarter
of a mile distant. Down they came! thousands

1 6 The Wilderness Hunter

upon thousands, their front extending a mile in
breadth, while the earth shook beneath their
thunderous gallop, and, as they came closer, their
shaggy frontlets loomed dimly through the col-
umns of dust thrown up from the dry soil. The
two hunters knew that their only hope for life was
to split the herd, which, though it had so broad
a front, was not very deep. If they failed they
would inevitably be trampled to death.

Waiting until the beasts were in close range,
they opened a rapid fire from their heavy breech-
loading rifles, yelling at the top of their voices.
For a moment the result seemed doubtful. The
line thundered steadily down on them; then it
swayed violently, as two or three of the brutes
immediately in their front fell beneath the bullets,
while their neighbors made violent efforts to press
off sideways. Then a narrow wedge-shaped rift
appeared in the line, and widened as it came
closer, and the buffaloes, shrinking from their
foes in front, strove desperately to edge away from
the dangerous neighborhood ; the shouts and
shots were redoubled; the hunters were almost
choked by the cloud of dust, through which they
could see the stream of dark huge bodies passing
within rifle-length on either side; and in a mo-
ment the peril was over, and the two men were
left alone on the plain, unharmed, though with
their nerves terribly shaken. The herd careered

The Bison or American Buffalo 17

on toward the horizon, save five individuals
which had been killed or disabled by the shots.

On another occasion, when my brother was out
with one of his friends, they fired at a small herd
containing an old bull; the bull charged the
smoke, and the whole herd followed him. Prob-
ably they were simply stampeded, and had no
hostile intention ; at any rate, after the death of
their leader, they rushed by without doing any
damage.

But buffaloes sometimes charged with the ut-
most determination, and were then dangerous
antagonists. My cousin, a very hardy and reso-
lute hunter, had a narrow escape from a wounded
cow which he followed up a steep bluff or sand
cliff. Just as he reached the summit, he was
charged, and was only saved by the sudden ap-
pearance of his dog, which distracted the cow's
attention. He thus escaped with only a tumble
and a few bruises.

My brother also came in for a charge, while
killing the biggest bull that was slain by any
of the party. He was out alone, and saw a
small herd of cows and calves at some distance,
with a huge bull among them, towering above
them like a giant. There was no break in the
ground, nor any tree nor bush near them, but, by
making a half -circle, my brother managed to creep
up against the wind behind a slight roll in the

VOL. II. — 2.

1 8 The Wilderness Hunter

prairie surface, until he was within seventy-five
yards of the grazing and unconscious beasts.
There were some cows and calves between him
and the bull, and he had to wait some moments
before they shifted position, as the herd grazed on-
ward and gave him a fair shot; in the interval
they had moved so far forward that he was in
plain view. His first bullet struck just behind the
shoulder; the herd started and looked aroimd,
but the bull merely lifted his head and took a step
forward, his tail curled up over his back. The
next bullet likewise struck fair, nearly in the same
place, telling with a loud ''pack " against the
thick hide, and making the dust fly up from the
matted hair. Instantly the great bull wheeled
and charged in headlong anger, while the herd
fied in the opposite direction. On the bare
prairie, with no spot of refuge, it was useless to
try to escape, and the hunter, with reloaded rifle,
waited until the bull was not far off, then drew up
his weapon and fired. Either he was nervous, or
the bull at the moment bounded over some ob-
stacle, for the ball went a little wild; neverthe-
less, by good luck, it broke a fore leg, and the
great beast came crashing to the earth, and was
slain before he could struggle to his feet.

Two days after this event, a war party of
Comanches swept down along the river. They
"jumped" a neighboring camp, killing one man

The Bison or American Buffalo 19

and wounding two more, and at the same time
ran off all but three of the horses belonging to
our eight adventurers. With the remaining three
horses and one wagon they set out homeward.
The march was hard and tedious ; they lost their
way and were in jeopardy from quicksands and
cloudbursts; they suffered from thirst and cold,
their shoes gave out, and their feet were lamed
by cactus spines. At last they reached Fort
Griffen in safety, and great was their ravenous re-
joicing when they procured some bread, — for dur-
ing the final fortnight of the hunt they had been
without flour or vegetables of any kind, or even
coffee, and had subsisted on fresh meat " straight.'*
Nevertheless, it was a very healthy as well as a
very pleasant and exciting experience; and I
doubt if any of those who took part in it will
ever forget their great buffalo-hunt on the Brazos.
My friend. Gen. W. H. Walker, of Virginia, had
an experience in the early '50's with buffaloes on
the Upper Arkansas River, which gives some idea
of their enormous numbers at that time. He was
camped with a scouting party on the banks of the
river, and had gone out to try to shoot some meat.
There were many buffaloes in sight, scattered,
according to their custom, in large bands. When
he was a mile or two away from the river a dull
roaring sound in the distance attracted his atten-
tion, and he saw that a herd of buffalo far to the

20 The Wilderness Hunter

south, away from the river, had been stampeded
and was running his way. He knew that if he was
caught in the open by the stampeded herd -his
chance for Hfe would be small, and at once ran
for the river. By desperate efforts he reached
the breaks in the sheer banks just as the buffaloes
reached them, and got into a position of safety on
the pinnacle of a little bluff. From this point of
vantage he could see the entire plain. To the
very verge of the horizon the brown masses of
the buffalo bands showed through the dust clouds,
coming on with a thunderous roar like that of
surf. Camp was a mile away, and the stampede
luckily passed to one side of it. Watching his
chance he finally dodged back to the tent, and all
that afternoon watched the immense masses of
buffalo, as band after band tore to the brink of
the bluffs on one side, raced down them, rushed
through the water, up the bluffs on the other
side, and again off over the plain, churning the
sandy, shallow stream into a ceaseless tumult.
When darkness fell there was no apparent decrease
in the numbers that were passing, and all through
that night the continuous roar showed that the
herds were still threshing across the river. To-
wards dawn the sound at last ceased, and General
Walker arose somewhat irritated, as he had reck-
oned on killing an ample supply of meat, and he
supposed that there would be now no bison left

The Bison or American Buffalo 21

south of the river. To his astonishment, when
he strolled up on the bluffs and looked over the
plain, it was still covered far and wide with groups
of buffalo, grazing quietly. Apparently there
were as many on that side as ever, in spite of the
many scores of thousands that must have crossed
over the river during the stampede of the after-
noon and night. The barren-ground caribou is
the only American animal which is now ever seen
in such enormous herds.

In 1862, Mr. Clarence King, while riding along
the overland trail through western Kansas, passed
through a great buffalo herd, and was himself in-
jured in an encoimter with a bull. The great herd
was then passing north, and Mr. King reckoned
that it must have covered an area nearly seventy
miles by thirty in extent ; the figures representing
his rough guess, made after travelling through the
herd crosswise, and upon knowing how long it
took to pass a given point going northward. This
great herd, of course, was not a solid mass of buf-
faloes ; it consisted of innumerable bands of every
size, dotting the prairie within the limits given.
Mr. King was mounted on a somewhat unman-
ageable horse. On one occasion in following a
band he wounded a large bull, and became so
wedged in by the maddened animals that he was
unable to avoid the charge of the bull, which was
at its last gasp. Coming straight toward him, it

22 The Wilderness Hunter

leaped into the air and struck the afterpart of
the saddle full with its massive forehead. The
horse was hurled to the ground with a broken
back, and King's leg was likewise broken, while
the bull turned a complete somersault over them
and never rose again.

In the recesses of the Rocky Mountains, from
Colorado northward through Alberta, and in the
depths of the subarctic forest beyond the Sas-
katchewan, there have always been foimd small
numbers of the bison, locally called the moim-
tain buffalo and wood buffalo; often indeed the
old hunters term these animals "bison," although
they never speak of the plains animals save as
buffalo. They form a slight variety of what was
formerly the ordinary plains bison, intergrading
with it ; on the whole, they are darker in color,
with longer, thicker hair, and in consequence
with the appearance of being heavier-bodied and
shorter-legged. They have been sometimes spo-
ken of as forming a separate species ; but, judging
from my own limited experience, and from a
comparison of the many hides I have seen, I
think they are really the same animal, many in-
dividuals of the two so-called varieties being quite
indistinguishable. In fact, the only moderate-
sized herd of wild bison in existence to-day, the
protected herd in the Yellowstone Park, is com-
posed of animals intermediate in habits and coat

The Bison or American Buffalo 23

between the mountain and plains varieties — as
were all the herds of the Bighorn, Big Hole,
Upper Madison, and Upper Yellowstone valleys.

However, the habitat of these wood and moun-
tain bison yielded them shelter from hunters in a
way that the plains never could, and hence they
have always been harder to kill in the one place
than in the other ; for precisely the same reasons
that have held good with the elk, which have
been completely exterminated from the plains,
while still abimdant in many of the forest fast-
nesses of the Rockies. Moreover, the bison's dull
eyesight is no special harm in the woods, while
it is peculiarly hurtful to the safety of any beast
on the plains, where eyesight avails more than any
other sense, the true game of the plains being
the prongbuck, the most keen-sighted of Ameri-
can animals. On the other hand the bison's
hearing, of little avail on the plains, is of much
assistance in the woods; and its excellent nose
helps equally in both places.

Though it was always more difficult to kill the
bison of the forests and mountains than the bison
of the prairie, yet now that the species is, in its
wild state, hovering on the brink of extinction,
the difficulty is immeasurably increased. A mer-
ciless and terrible process of natural selection,
in which the agents were rifle-bearing hunters,
has left as the last survivors in a hopeless struggle

24 The Wilderness Hunter

for existence only the wariest of the bison and
those gifted with the sharpest senses. That this
was true of the last lingering individuals that
survived the great slaughter on the plains is well
shown by Mr. Homaday in his graphic account
of his campaign against the few scattered buffalo
which still lived in 1886 between the Missouri
and the Yellowstone, along the Big Dry. The
bison of the plains and the prairies have now
vanished; and so few of their brethren of the
mountains and the northern forests are left, that
they can just barely be reckoned among Ameri-
can game ; but whoever is so fortunate as to find
any of these animals must work his hardest, and
show all his skill as a hunter, if he wishes to get
one.

In the fall of 1889 I heard that a very few
bison were still left around the head of Wisdom
River. Thither I went and hunted faithfully;
there was plenty of game of other kind, but of
bison not a trace did we see. Nevertheless, a
few days later that same year I came across these
great wild cattle at a time when I had no idea
of seeing them.

It was, as nearly as we could tell, in Idaho,
just south of the Montana boundary line, and
some twenty-five miles west of the line of Wyo-
ming. We were camped high among the moun-
tains, with a small pack-train. On the day in

The Bison or American Buffalo 25

question we had gone out to find moose, but had
seen no sign of them, and had then begim to chmb
over the higher peaks with an idea of getting sheep.
The old hunter who was with me was, very for-
timately, suffering from rheumatism, and he there-
fore carried a long stafE instead of his rifle ; I say
fortimately, for if he had carried his rifle it would
have been impossible to stop his firing at such
game as bison, nor would he have spared the cows
and calves.

About the middle of the afternoon we crossed
a low, rocky ridge, above timber line, and saw at
our feet a basin or round valley of singular beauty.
Its walls were formed by steep mountains. At its
upper end lay a small lake, bordered on one side
by a meadow of emerald green. The lake's other
side marked the edge of the frowning pine forest
which filled the rest of the valley, and hung high
on the sides of the gorge which formed its outlet.
Beyond the lake the ground rose in a pass evi-
dently much frequented by game in bygone days,
their trails lying along it in thick zigzags, each
gradually fading out after a few hundred yards,
and then starting again in a little different place,
as game trails so often seem to do.

We bent our steps towards these trails, and no
sooner had we reached the first than the old hunter
bent over it with a sharp exclamation of wonder.
There in the dust, apparently but a few hours

26 The Wilderness Hunter

old, were the unmistakable hoof -marks of a small
band of bison. They were headed towards the
lake. There had been a half a dozen animals in
the party ; one a big bull, and two calves.

We immediately turned and followed the trail.
It led down to the little lake, where the beasts had
spread and grazed on the tender, green blades, and
had drimk their fill. The footprints then came to-
gether again, showing where the animals had
gathered and walked ofE in single file to the forest.
Evidently they had come to the pool in the early
morning, walking over the game pass from some
neighboring valley, and after drinking and feeding
had moved into the pine forest to find some spot
for their noontide rest.

It was a very still day, and there were nearly
three hours of daylight left. Without a word my
silent companion, who had been scanning the
whole country with hawk-eyed eagerness, be-
sides scrutinizing the sign on his hands and knees,
took the trail, motioning me to follow. In a mo-
ment we entered the woods, breathing a sigh of
relief as we did so; for while in the meadow we
could never tell that the buffalo might not see us,
if they happened to be lying in some place with a
commanding lookout.

The old hunter was thoroughly roused, and he
showed himself a very skilful tracker. We were
much favored by the character of the forest, which

The Bison or American Buffalo 27

was rather open, and in most places free from
undergrowth and down timber. As in most Rocky-
Mountain forests the timber was small, not only as
compared to the giant trees of the groves of the
Pacific coast, but as compared to the forests of the
Northeast. The ground was covered with pine-
needles and soft moss, so that it was not difficult to
walk noiselessly. Once or twice when I trod on a
small dry twig, or let the nails in my shoes clink
slightly against a stone, the hunter turned to me
with a frown of angry impatience; but as he
walked slowly, continually halting to look ahead,
as well as stooping over to examine the trail, I did
not find it very difficult to move silently. I kept
a little behind him, and to one side, save when he
crouched to take advantage of some piece of cover,
and I crept in his footsteps. I did not look at the
trail at all, but kept watching ahead, hoping at
any moment to see the game.

It was not very long before we struck their day-
beds, which were made on a knoll, where the forest
was open and where there was much down timber.
After leaving the day-beds the animals had at first
fed separately around the grassy base and sides of
the knoll, and had then made off in their usual
single file, going straight to a small pool in the
forest. After drinking they had left this pool, and
travelled down towards the gorge at the mouth of
the basin, the trail leading along the sides of the

28 The Wilderness Hunter

steep hill, which were dotted by open glades;
while the roar of the cataracts by which the stream
was broken ascended from below. Here we moved
with redoubled caution, for the sign had grown
very fresh and the animals had once more scat-
tered and begun feeding. When the trail led across
the glades we usually skirted them so as to keep
in the timber.

At last, on nearing the edge of one of these
glades we saw a movement among the young trees
on the other side, not fifty yards away. Peering
through the safe shelter yielded by some thick
evergreen bushes, we speedily made out three
bison, a cow, a calf, and a yearling, grazing greedily
on the other side of the glade, under the fringing
timber ; all with their heads up hill. Soon another
cow and calf stepped out after them. I did not
wish to shoot, waiting for the appearance of the
big bull which I knew was accompanying them.

So for several minutes I watched the great,
clumsy, shaggy beasts, as all unconscious they
grazed in the open glade. Behind them rose the
dark pines. At the left of the glade the ground fell
away to form the side of a chasm; down in its
depths the cataracts foamed and thundered; be-
yond, the huge mountains towered, their crests
crimsoned by the sinking sun. Mixed with the
eager excitement of the hunter was a certain half
melancholy feeling as I gazed on these bison, them-

The Bison or American Buffalo 29

selves part of the last remnant of a doomed and
nearly vanished race. Few, indeed, are the men
who now have, or evermore shall have, the chance
of seeing the mightiest of American beasts, in all
his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremendous
desolation of his far-off mountain home.

At last, when I had begun to grow very anxious
lest the others should take alarm, the bull likewise
appeared on the edge of the glade, and stood with
outstretched head, scratching his throat against a
young tree, which shook violently. I aimed low,
behind his shoulder, and pulled trigger. At the
crack of the rifle all the bison, without the mo-
mentary halt of terror-struck surprise so common
among game, turned and raced off at headlong
speed. The fringe of young pines beyond and
below the glade cracked and swayed as if a whirl-
wind were passing, and in another moment they
reached the top of a very steep incline, thickly
strewn with boulders and dead timber. Down
this they plunged with reckless speed ; their sure-
footedness was a marvel in such seemingly im-
wieldy beasts. A column of dust obscured their
passage, and under its cover they disappeared in
the forest ; but the trail of the bull was marked
by splashes of frothy blood, and we followed it
at a trot. Fifty yards beyond the border of the
forest we foimd the stark black body stretched
motionless. He was a splendid old bull, still in

30 The Wilderness Hunter

his full vigor, with large sharp horns, and heavy
mane and glossy coat; and I felt the most ex-
ulting pride as I handled and examined him ; for
I had procured a trophy such as can fall hence-
forth to few hunters indeed.

It was too late to dress the beast that evening ;
so, after taking out the tongue and cutting off
enough meat for supper and breakfast, we scram-
bled down to near the torrent, and after some
search fotmd a good spot for camping. Hot and
dusty from the day's hard tramp, I imdressed and
took a plunge in the stream, the icy water making
me gasp. Then, having built a slight lean-to of
brush, and dragged together enough dead timber
to bum all night, we cut long alder twigs, sat down
before some embers raked apart, and grilled and
ate our buffalo meat with the utmost relish. Night
had fallen; a cold wind blew up the valley; the
torrent roared as it leaped past us, and drowned
our words as we strove to talk over our adventures
and success; while the flame of the fire flickered
and danced, lighting up with continual vivid
flashes the gloom of the forest round about.

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK BEAR

NEXT to the whitetail deer the black bear is
the commonest and most widely distrib-
uted of American big game. It is still
foimd quite plentifully in northern New England,
in the Adirondacks, Cat skills, and along the entire
length of the Alleghanies, as well as in the swamps
and canebrakes of the Southern States. It is also
common in the great forests of northern Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and throughout the
Rocky Moimtains and the timbered ranges of the
Pacific coast. In the East it has always ranked
second only to the deer among the beasts of chase.
The bear and the buck were the staple objects of
pursuit of all the old hunters. They were more
plentiful than the bison and elk even in the long
vanished days when these two great monarchs of
the forest still ranged eastward to Virginia and
Pennsylvania. The wolf and the cougar were
always too scarce and too shy to yield much profit
to the hunter. The black bear is a timid, cowardly
animal, and usually a vegetarian, though it some-
times preys on the sheep, hogs, and even cattle of

31

32 The Wilderness Hunter

the settler, and is very fond of raiding his com and
melons. Its meat is good and its fur often valua-
ble; and in its chase there is much excitement,
and occasionally a slight spice of danger, just
enough to render it attractive; so it has always
been eagerly followed. Yet it still holds its own,
though in greatly diminished numbers, in the more
thinly settled portions of the country. One of the
standing riddles of American zoology is the fact
that the black bear, which is easier killed and less
prolific than the wolf, should hold its own in the
land better than the latter, this being directly
the reverse of what occurs in Europe, where the
brown bear is generally exterminated before the
wolf.

In a few wild spots in the East, in northern
Maine for instance, here and there in the neigh-
borhood of the upper Great Lakes, in the east
Tennessee and Kentucky mountains and the
swamps of Florida and Mississippi, there still lin-
gers an occasional representative of the old wilder-
ness hunters. These men live in log cabins in the
wilderness. They do their hunting on foot, occa-
sionally with the help of a single trailing dog. In
Maine they are as apt to kill moose and caribou as
bear and deer; but elsewhere the last two, with an
occasional cougar or wolf, are the beasts of chase
which they follow. Nowadays as these old hunters
die there is no one to take their places, though

The Black Bear 33

there are still plenty of backwoods settlers in all
of the regions named who do a great deal of hunt-
ing and trapping. Such an old hunter rarely
makes his appearance at the settlements except to
dispose of his peltry and hides in exchange for
cartridges and provisions, and he leads a life of
such lonely isolation as to insure his individual
characteristics developing into peculiarities. Most
of the wilder districts in the Eastern States still
preserve memories of some such old hunter who
lived his long life alone, waging ceaseless warfare
on the vanishing game, whose oddities, as well as
his courage, hardihood, and woodcraft, are laugh-
ingly remembered by the older settlers, and who
is usually best known as having killed the last
wolf or bear or cougar ever seen in the locality.

Generally the weapon mainly relied on by these
old himters is the rifle ; and occasionally some old
himter will be found even to this day who uses a
muzzle-loader, such as Kit Carson carried in the
middle of the century. There are exceptions to
this rule of the rifle, however. In the years after
the Civil War one of the many noted hunters of
southwest Virginia and east Tennessee was Wilbur
Waters, sometimes called the Hunter of White
Top. He often killed black bear with a knife
and dogs. He spent all his life in hunting and
was very successful, killing the last gang of wolves
to be found in his neighborhood; and he slew

VOL. II. — 3.

34 The Wilderness Hunter

innumerable bears, with no worse results to him-
self than an occasional bite or scratch.

In the Southern States the planters living in the
wilder regions have always been in the habit of
following the black bear with horse and hoimd,
many of them keeping regular packs of bear
hounds. Such a pack includes not only pure-bred
hounds, but also cross-bred animals, and some
sharp, agile, hard-biting fierce dogs and terriers.
They follow the bear and bring him to bay, but do
not try to kill him, although there are dogs of the
big fighting breeds which can readily master a
black bear if loosed at him three or four at a time ;
but the dogs of these southern bear-hound packs
are not fitted for such work, and if they try to
close with the bear he is certain to play havoc
with them, disembowelling them with blows of
his paws or seizing them in his arms and biting
through their spines or legs. The riders follow the
hounds through the canebrakes, and also try to
make cut-offs and station themselves at open points
where they think the bear will pass, so that they
may get a shot at him. The weapons used are
rifles, shotguns, and occasionally revolvers.

Sometimes, however, the hunter uses the knife.
General Wade Hampton, who has probably killed
more black bears than any other man living in the
United States, frequently used the knife, slaying
thirty or forty with this weapon. His plan was,

The Black Bear 35

when he found that the dogs had the bear at bay,
to walk up close and cheer them on. They would
instantly seize the bear in a body, and he would
then rush in and stab it behind the shoulder,
reaching over so as to inflict the wound on the
opposite side from that where he stood. He es-
caped scathless from all these encounters save one,
in which he was rather severely torn in the fore-
arm. Many other hunters have used the knife, but
perhaps none so frequently as he; for he was
always fond of steel, as witness his feats with the
** white arm" during the Civil War.

General Hampton always hunted with large
packs of hounds, managed sometimes by himself
and sometimes by his negro hunters. He occasion-
ally took out forty dogs at a time. He fotmd that
all his dogs together could not kill a big fat bear,
but they occasionally killed three-year-olds, or
lean and poor bears. During the course of his life
he has himself killed, or been in at the death of,
five hundred bears, at least two thirds of them
falling by his own hand. In the years just before
the war he had on one occasion, in Mississippi,
killed sixty-eight bears in five months. Once he
killed four bears in a day ; at another time three,
and frequently two. The two largest bears he
himself killed weighed, respectively, 408 and 410
pounds. They were both shot in Mississippi. But
he saw at least one bear killed which was much

36 The Wilderness Hunter

larger than either of these. These figures were
taken down at the time, when the animals were
actually weighed on the scales. Most of his himting
for bear was done in northern Mississippi, where
one of his plantations was situated, near Greenville.
During the half -century that he hunted, on and
off, in this neighborhood, he knew of two instances
where hunters were fatally wounded in the chase
of the black bear. Both of the men were inexpe-
rienced , one being a raftsman who came down the
river, and the other a man from Vicksburg. He
was not able to learn the particulars in the last
case, but the raftsman came too close to a bear
that was at bay, and it broke through the dogs,
rushed at and overthrew him, then, lying on him,
it bit him deeply in the thigh, through the fem-
oral artery, so that he speedily bled to death.

But a black bear is not usually a formidable op-
ponent, and though he will sometimes charge
home he is much more apt to bluster and bully
than actually to come to close quarters. I myself
have but once seen a man who had been hurt by
one of these bears. This was an Indian. He had
come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and
had mortally wounded it with his gun; it had
then closed with him, knocking the gun out of his
hand, so that he was forced to use his knife. It
charged him on all fours, but in the grapple, when
it had failed to throw him down, it raised itself on

The Black Bear 37

its hind legs, clasping him across the shoulders
with its fore paws. Apparently it had no intention
of hugging, but merely sought to draw him within
reach of his jaws. He fought desperately against
this, using the knife freely, and striving to keep its
head back; and the flow of blood weakened the
animal, so that it finally fell exhausted before
being able dangerously to injure him. But it had
bitten his left arm very severely, and its claws had
made long gashes on his shoulders.

Black bears, like grislies, vary greatly in their
modes of attack. Sometimes they rush in and bite ;
and again they strike with their fore paws. Two
of my cowboys were originally from Maine, where
I knew them well. There they were fond of trap-
ping bears, and caught a good many. The huge
steel gins, attached by chains to heavy clogs, pre-
vented the trapped beasts from going far; and
when fotmd they were always tied tight round
some tree or bush, and usually nearly exhausted.
The men killed them either with a little 3 2 -calibre
pistol or a hatchet. But once did they meet with
any difficulty. On this occasion one of them in-
cautiously approached a captured bear to knock
it on the head with his hatchet, but the animal
managed to partially untwist itself, and with its
free forearm made a rapid sweep at him; he
jumped back just in time, the bear's claws tearing
his clothes — after which he shot it. Bears are shy

3^ The Wilderness Hunter

and have very keen noses ; they are therefore hard
to kill by fair hunting, living, as they generally do,
in dense forests or thick brush. They are easy
enough to trap, however. Thus, these two men,
though they trapped so many, never but once
killed them in any other way. On this occasion
one of them, in the winter, foimd in a great hollow
log a den where a she and two well-grown cubs had
taken up their abode, and shot all three with his
rifle as they burst out.

Where they are much hunted, bear become
purely nocturnal ; but in the wilder forests I have
seen them abroad at all hours, though they do not
much relish the intense heat of noon. They are
rather comical animals to watch feeding and going
about the ordinary business of their lives. Once I
spent half an hour lying at the edge of a wood and
looking at a black bear some three hundred yards
off across an open glade. It was in good stalking
country, but the wind was unfavorable, and I
waited for it to shift — waited too long as it proved,
for something frightened the beast, and he made
off before I could get a shot at him. When I first
saw him he was shuffling along and rooting in the
ground, so that he looked like a great pig. Then
he began to turn over the stones and logs to himt
for insects, small reptiles, and the like. A mod-
erate-sized stone he would turn over with a single
clap of his paw, and then plunge his nose down

The Black Bear 39

into the hollow to gobble up the small creatures
beneath while still dazed by the light. The big
logs and rocks he would tug and worry at with
both paws ; once, over-exerting his clumsy strength,
he lost his grip and rolled clean on his back. Under
some of the logs he evidently found mice and chip-
munks ; then, as soon as the log was overturned,
he would be seen jumping about with grotesque
agility, and making quick dabs here and there, as
the little, scurrying rodent turned and twisted,
until at last he put his paw on it and scooped it up
into his mouth. Sometimes, probably when he
smelt the mice imdemeath, he would cautiously
turn the log over with one paw, holding the other
lifted and ready to strike. Now and then he
would halt and sniff the air in every direction, and
it was after one of these halts that he suddenly
shuffled off into the woods.

Black bear generally feed on berries, nuts, in-
sects, carrion, and the like; but at times they
take to killing very large animals. In fact, they
are curiously irregular in their food. They will kill
deer if they can get at them; but generally the
deer are too quick. Sheep and hogs are their
favorite prey, especially the latter, for bears seem
to have a special relish for pork. Twice I have
known a black bear kill cattle. Once the victim
was a bull which had got mired, and which the
bear deliberately proceeded to eat alive, heedless

40 The Wilderness Hunter

of the bellows of the unfortunate beast. On the
other occasion, a cow was surprised and slain
among some bushes at the edge of a remote pas-
ture. In the spring, soon after the long winter
sleep, they are very hungry, and are especially apt
to attack large beasts at this time ; although dur-
ing the very first days of their appearance, when
they are just breaking their fast, they eat rather
sparingly, and by preference the tender shoots of
green grass and other herbs, or frogs and crayfish ;
it is not for a week or two that they seem to be
overcome by lean, ravenous hunger. They will
even attack and master that formidable fighter
the moose, springing at it from an ambush as it
passes — for a bull moose would surely be an over-
match for one of them if fronted fairly in the open.
An old hunter, whom I could trust, told me that
he had seen in the snow in early spring the place
where a bear had sprung at two moose, which were
trotting together; he missed his spring, and the
moose got off, their strides after they settled down
into their pace being tremendous, and showing how
thoroughly they were frightened . Another time he
saw a bear chase a moose into a lake, where it waded
out a little distance, and then turned to bay, bid-
ding defiance to his pursuer, the latter not daring to
approach in the water. I have been told — but can-
not vouch for it — that instances have been known
where the bear, maddened by hunger, has gone in

The Black Bear 41

on a moose thus standing at bay, only to be beaten
down under the water by the terrible fore hoofs of
the quarry, and to yield its life in the contest. A
lumberman told me that he once saw a moose,
evidently much startled, trot through a swamp,
and immediately afterwards a bear came up, follow-
ing the tracks. He almost ran into the man, and
was evidently not in a good temper, for he growled
and blustered, and two or three times made feints
of charging, before he finally concluded to go off.

Bears will occasionally visit hunters' or lumber-
men's camps, in the absence of the owners, and
play sad havoc with all that therein is, devouring
everything eatable, especially if sweet, and tram-
pling into a dirty mess whatever they do not eat.
The black bear does not average more than a third
the size of the grisly; but, like all its kind, it
varies greatly in weight. The largest I myself ever
saw weighed was in Maine, and tipped the scale at
346 pounds; but I have a perfectly authentic rec-
ord of one in Maine that weighed 397, and my
friend, Dr. Hart Merriam, tells me that he has
seen several in the Adirondacks that when killed
weighed about 350.

I have myself shot but one or two black bears,
and these were obtained imder circumstances of no
special interest, as I merely stumbled on them
while after other game, and killed them before
they had a chance either to run or show fight.

CHAPTER III

OLD EPHRAIM, THE GRISLY BEAR

THE king of the game beasts of temperate
North America, because the most danger-
ous to the hunter, is the grisly bear ; known
to the few remaining old-time trappers of the
Rockies and the great plains, sometimes as "Old
Ephraim" and sometimes as ** Moccasin Joe" —
the last in allusion to his queer, half -human foot-
prints, which look as if made by some misshapen
giant, walking in moccasins.

Bear vary greatly in size and color, no less than
in temper and habits. Old hunters speak much of
them in their endless talks over the camp-fires and
in the snow-bound winter huts. They insist on
many species ; not merely the black and the grisly,
but the brown, the cinnamon, the gray, the silver-
tip, and others with names known only in certain
localities, such as the range bear, the roach-back,
and the smut-face. But, in spite of popular opin-
ion to the contrary, most old hunters are very
untrustworthy in dealing with points of natural his-
tory. They usually know only so much about any
given game animal as will enable them to kill it.

42

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 43

They study its habits solely with this end in view ;
and once slain they only examine it to see about
its condition and fur. With rare exceptions they
are quite incapable of passing judgment upon
questions of specific identity or difference. When
questioned, they not only advance perfectly im-
possible theories and facts in support of their
views, but they rarely even agree as to the views
themselves. One himter will assert that the true
grisly is only found in California, heedless of the
fact that the name was first used by Lewis and
Clarke as one of the titles they applied to the large
bears of the plains country round the Upper Mis-
souri, a quarter of a century before the California
grisly was known to fame. Another hunter will
call any big brindled bear a grisly no matter where
it is f otmd ; and he and his companions will dispute
by the hour as to whether a bear of large, but not
extreme, size is a grisly or a silver-tip. In Oregon
the cinnamon bear is a phase of the small black
bear; in Montana it is the plains variety of the
large mountain silver-tip. I have myself seen the
skins of two bears killed on the upper waters of
Tongue River; one was that of a male, one of a
female, and they had evidently just mated; yet
one was distinctly a ''silver-tip" and the other a
' ' cinnamon . ' ' The skin of one very big bear which
I killed in the Bighorn has proved a standing puz-
zle to almost all the old hunters to whom I have

44 The Wilderness Hunter

showed it ; rarely do any two of them agree as to
whether it is a grisly, a silver-tip, a cinnamon, or a
** smut-face." Any bear with imusually long hair
on the spine and shoulders, especially if killed in
the spring, when the fur is shaggy, is forthwith
dubbed a *' roach-back." The average sporting
writer moreover joins with the more imaginative
members of the ''old hunter" variety in ascribing
wildly various traits to these different bears. One
comments on the superior prowess of the roach-
back; the explanation being that a bear in early
spring is apt to be ravenous from hunger. The
next insists that the California grisly is the only
really dangerous bear; while another stoutly
maintains that it does not compare in ferocity
with what he calls the " smaller" silver-tip or cin-
namon. And so on, and so on, without end. All of
which is mere nonsense.

Nevertheless, it is no easy task to determine
how many species or varieties of bear actually do
exist in the United States, and I cannot even say
without doubt that a very large set of skins and
skulls would not show a nearly complete inter-
gradation between the most widely separated in-
dividuals. However, there are certainly two very
distinct types, which differ almost as widely from
each other as a wapiti does from a mule deer, and
which exist in the same localities in most heavily
timbered portions of the Rockies. One is the

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 45

small black bear, a bear which will average about
two hiindred pounds weight, with fine, glossy,
black fur, and the fore claws but little longer, than
the hinder ones; in fact, the hairs of the fore paw
often reach to their tips. This bear is a tree-
climber. It is the only kind foimd east of the
great plains, and it is also plentiful in the forest-
clad portions of the Rockies, being common in
most heavily timbered tracts throughout the
United States. The other is the grisly, which
weighs three or four times as much as the black,
and has a pelt of coarse hair, which is in color gra}^
grizzled, or brown of various shades. It is not a
tree-climber, and the fore claws are very long,
much longer than the hinder ones. It is foimd
from the great plains west of the Mississippi to the
Pacific coast. This bear inhabits indifferently
lowland and mountain ; the deep woods, and the
barren plains where the only cover is the stimted
growth fringing the streams. These two types are
very distinct in every way, and their differences
are not at all dependent upon mere geographical
considerations; for they are often found in the
same district. Thus I found them both in the
Bighorn Moimtains, each type being in extreme
form, while the specimens I shot showed no trace
of intergradation. The huge grizzled, long-clawed
beast, and its little glossy-coated, short-clawed,
tree-climbing brother roamed over exactly the

46 The Wilderness Hunter

same country in those mountains ; but they were
as distinct in habits, and mixed as Httle together,
as moose and caribou.

On the other hand, when a sufficient number of
bears from widely separated regions are examined,
the various distinguishing marks are fotind to be
inconstant, and to show a tendency — exactly how
strong I cannot say — to fade into one another.
The differentiation of the two species seems to be
as yet scarcely completed ; there are more or less
imperfectly connecting links, and as regards the
grisly it almost seems as if the specific characters
were still imstable. In the far Northwest, in the
basin of the Columbia, the ** black" bear is as
often brown as any other color; and I have seen
the skins of two cubs, one black and one brown,
which were shot when following the same dam.
When these brown bears have coarser hair than
usual their skins are with difficulty to be distin-
guished from those of certain varieties of the grisly.
Moreover, all bears vary greatly in size; and I
have seen the bodies of very large black or brown
bears with short fore claws which were fully as
heavy as, or perhaps heavier than, some small but
full-grown grislies with long fore claws. These
very large bears with short claws are very reluc-
tant to climb a tree; and are almost as clumsy
about it as a young grisly. Among the grislies the
fur varies much in color and texture even among

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 47

bears of the same locality ; it is of course richest in
the deep forest, while the bears of the dry plains
and mountains are of a lighter, more washed-
out hue.

A full-grown grisly will usually weigh from five
to seven hundred pounds ; but exceptional individ-
uals imdoubtedly reach more than twelve hun-
dredweight. The California bears are said to be
much the largest. This I think is so, but I cannot
say it with certainty — at any rate, I have examined
several skins of full-grown Califomian bears which
were no larger than those of many I have seen
from the northern Rockies. The Alaskan bears,
particularly those of the peninsula, are even bigger
beasts ; the skin of one which I saw in the posses-
sion of Mr. Webster, the taxidermist, was a good
deal larger than the average polar-bear skin ; and
the animal when alive, if in good condition, could
hardly have weighed less than 1400 pounds.'
Bears vary wonderfully in weight, even to the ex-
tent of becoming half as heavy again, according
as they are fat or lean; in this respect they are
more like hogs than like any other animals.

The grisly is now chiefly a beast of the high hills
and heavy timber ; but this is merely because he
has learned that he must rely on cover to guard

I Both this huge Alaskan bear and the entirely distinct
bear of the barren grounds differ widely from the true
grisly, at least in their extreme forms.

48 The Wilderness Hunter

him from man, and has forsaken the open ground
accordingly. In old days, and in one or two very
out-of-the-way places almost to the present time,
he wandered at will over the plains. It is only the
wariness bom of fear which nowadays causes him
to cling to the thick brush of the large river
bottoms throughout the plains country. When
there were no rifle-bearing hunters in the land, to
harass him and make him afraid, he roved hither
and thither at will, in burly self-confidence. Then
he cared little for cover, unless as a weather-break,
or because it happened to contain food he liked. If
the humor seized him he would roam for days over
the rolling or broken prairie, searching for roots,
digging up gophers, or perhaps following the great
buffalo herds, either to prey on some unwary strag-
gler which he was able to catch at a disadvantage
in a washout, or else to feast on the carcasses of
those which died by accident. Old hunters, sur-
vivors of the long- vanished ages when the vast
herds thronged the high plains and were followed
by the wild red tribes, and by bands of whites who
were scarcely less savage, have told me that they
often met bears under such circumstances; and
these bears were accustomed to sleep in a patch of
rank sage bush, in the niche of a washout, or imder
the lee of a boulder, seeking their food abroad even
in full daylight. The bears of the Upper Missouri
Basin — ^which were so light in color that the early

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 49

explorers often alluded to them as gray or even as
"white" — were particularly given to this life in
the open. To this day that close kinsman of the
grisly known as the bear of the barren grounds
continues to lead this same kind of life, in the far
North. My friend Mr. Rockhill, of Maryland, who
was the first white man to explore eastern Tibet,
describes the large, grisly-like bear of those deso-
late uplands as having similar habits.

However, the grisly is a shrewd beast, and shows
the usual bear-like capacity for adapting himself
to changed conditions. He has in most places be-
come a cover-haimting animal, sly in his ways,
wary to a degree, and clinging to the shelter of the
deepest forests in the moimtains and of the most
tangled thickets in the plains. Hence he has held
his own far better than such game as the bison and
elk. He is much less common than formerly, but
he is still to be found throughout most of his
former range; save of course in the immediate
neighborhood of the large towns.

In most places the grisly hibernates, or as
old hunters say ''holes up," during the cold sea-
son, precisely as does the black bear; but, as with
the latter species, those animals which live far-
thest south spend the whole year abroad in mild
seasons. The grisly rarely chooses that favorite
den of his little black brother, a hollow tree or
log, for his winter sleep, seeking or making some

VOL. II.— 4.

50 The Wilderness Hunter

cavernous hole in the ground instead. The hole
is sometimes in a slight hillock in a river bottom,
but more often on a hillside, and may be either
shallow or deep. In the mountains it is generally
a natural cave in the rock, but among the foothills
and on the plains the bear usually has to take
some hollow or opening, and then fashion it into
a burrow to his liking with his big digging claws.

Before the cold weather sets in the bear begins
to grow restless, and to roam about seeking for a
good place in which to hole up. One will often
try and abandon several caves or partially dug-
out burrows in succession before finding a place
to its taste. It always endeavors to choose a
spot where there is little chance of discovery or
molestation, taking great care to avoid leaving
too evident trace of its work. Hence it is not
often that the dens are found.

Once in its den the bear passes the cold months
in lethargic sleep; yet, in all but the coldest
weather, and sometimes even then, its slumber
is but slight, and if disturbed it will promptly
leave its den, prepared for fight or flight as
the occasion may require. Many times when a
hunter has stumbled on the winter resting-place
of a bear and has left it, as he thought, without
his presence being discovered, he has returned
only to find that the crafty old fellow was aware
of the danger all the time, and sneaked off as

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 51

soon as the coast was clear. But in very cold
weather hibernating bears can hardly be wakened
from their torpid lethargy.

The length of time a bear stays in its den de-
pends of course upon the severity of the season
and the latitude and altitude of the country. In
the northernmost and coldest regions all the bears
hole up, and spend half the year in a state of
lethargy; whereas in the south only the shes
with young and the fat he-bears retire for the
sleep, and these but for a few weeks, and only
if the season is severe.

When the bear first leaves its den the fur is in
very fine order, but it speedily becomes thin and
poor, and does not recover its condition until the
fall. Sometimes the bear does not betray any
great hunger for a few days after its appear-
ance; but in a short while it becomes ravenous.
During the early spring, when the woods are still
entirely barren and lifeless, while the snow yet
lies in deep drifts, the lean, himgry brute, both
maddened and weakened by long fasting, is more
of a flesh-eater than at any other time. It is at
this period that it is most apt to turn true beast
of prey, and show its prowess either at the ex-
pense of the wild game, or of the flocks of the
settler and the herds of the ranchman. Bears
are very capricious in this respect, however.
Some are confirmed game- and cattle-killers;

52 The Wilderness Hunter

others are not; while yet others either are or
are not, accordingly as the freak seizes them, and
their ravages vary almost unaccountably, both
with the season and the locality.

Throughout 1889, for instance, no cattle, so
far as I heard, were killed by bears anywhere
near my range on the Little Missouri in western
Dakota; yet I happened to know that during
that same season the ravages of the bears among
the herds of the cowmen in the Big Hole Basin,
in western Montana, were very destructive.

In the spring and early summer of 1888, the
bears killed no cattle near my ranch ; but in the
late summer and early fall of that year a big bear,
which we well knew by its tracks, suddenly took
to cattle-killing. This was a brute which had its
headquarters on some very large brush bottoms
a dozen miles below my ranch-house, and which
ranged to and fro across the broken country
flanking the river on each side. It began just
before berry-time, but continued its career of
destruction long after the wild plums and even
buffalo berries had ripened. I think that what
started it was a feast on a cow which had mired
and died in the bed of the creek ; at least, it was
not until after we found that it had been feeding
at the carcass and had eaten every scrap, that we
discovered traces of its ravages among the live
stock. It seemed to attack the animals wholly

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 53

regardless of their size and strength ; its victims
including a large bull and a beef steer, as well as
cows, yearlings, and gaunt, weak trail "dough-
gies," which had been brought in very late by a
Texas cow-outfit — for that year several herds
were driven up from the overstocked, eaten-out,
and drought -stricken ranges of the far south.
Judging from the signs, the crafty old grisly, as
cimning as he was ferocious, usually lay in wait
for the cattle when they came down to water,
choosing some thicket of dense underbrush and
twisted cottonwoods through which they had to
pass before reaching the sand banks on the river's
brink. Sometimes he pounced on them as they
fed through the thick, low cover of the bottoms,
where an assailant could either lie in ambush by
one of the numerous cattle trails, or else, creep
unobserved towards some browsing beast. When
within a few feet a quick rush carried him fairly
on the terrified quarry ; and though but a clumsy
animal compared to the great cats, the grisly is
far quicker than one would imagine from view-
ing his ordinary lumbering gait. In one or two
instances the bear had apparently grappled with
his victim by seizing it near the loins and strik-
ing a disabling blow over the small of the back;
in at least one instance he had jumped on the
animal's head, grasping it with his fore paws,
while with his fangs he tore open the throat or

54 The Wilderness Hunter

cratinched the neck bone. Some of his victims
were slain far from the river, in winding, brushy
coulies of the Bad Lands, where the broken nature
of the ground rendered stalking easy. Several
of the ranchmen, angered at their losses, hunted
their foe eagerly, but always with ill success ; until
one of them put poison in a carcass, and thus at
last, in ignoble fashion, slew the cattle-killer.

Mr. Clarence King informs me that he was once
eye-witness to a bear's killing a steer, in Cali-
fornia. The steer was in a small pasture, and
the bear climbed over, partly breaking down, the
rails which barred the gateway. The steer started
to run, but the grisly overtook it in four or five
boimds, and struck it a tremendous blow on the
flank with one paw, knocking several ribs clear
away from the spine, and killing the animal out-
right by the shock.

Horses no less than horned cattle at times fall
victims to this great bear, which usually springs
on them from the edge of a clearing as they graze
in some mountain pasture, or among the foot-
hills ; and there is no other animal of which horses
seem so much afraid. Generally the bear, whether
successful or unsuccessful in its raids on cattle and
horses, comes off unscathed from the struggle;
but this is not always the case, and it has much
respect for the hoofs or horns of its should-be
prey. Some horses do not seem to know how to

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 55

fight at all ; but others are both quick and vicious,
and prove themselves very formidable foes, lash-
ing out behind, and striking with their fore hoofs.
I have elsewhere given an instance of a stallion
which beat off a bear, breaking its jaw.

Quite near my ranch, once, a cowboy in my
employ fotmd unmistakable evidence of the dis-
comfiture of a bear by a long-horned range cow.
It was in the early spring, and the cow, with her
new-bom calf, was in a brush-bordered valley.
The footprints in the damp soil were very plain,
and showed all that had happened. The bear
had evidently come out of the bushes with a
rush, probably bent merely on seizing the calf;
and had slowed up when the cow instead of fly-
ing faced him. He had then begun to walk round
his expected dinner in a circle, the cow fronting
him and moving nervously back and forth, so
that her sharp hoofs cut and trampled the ground.
Finally she had charged savagely; whereupon
the bear had bolted; and, whether frightened at
the charge, or at the approach of some one, he
had not returned.

The grisly is even fonder of sheep and pigs
than is its smaller black brother. Lurking round
the settler's house imtil after nightfall, it will
vault into the fold or sty, grasp a helpless, bleat-
ing fleece-bearer, or a shrieking, struggling mem-
ber of the bristly brotherhood, and bundle it out

5^ The Wilderness Hunter

over the fence to its death. In carrying its prey
a bear sometimes holds the body in its teeth,
walking along on all fours and dragging it as a
wolf does. Sometimes, however, it seizes an ani-
mal in its forearms or in one of them, and walks
awkwardly on three legs or two, adopting this
method in lifting and pushing the body over
rocks and down timber.

When a grisly can get at domestic animals it
rarely seeks to molest game, the former being
far less wary and more helpless. Its heaviness
and clumsiness do not fit it well for a life of
rapine against shy woodland creatures. Its vast
strength and determined temper, however, more
than make amends for lack of agility in the
actual struggle with the stricken prey; its diffi-
culty lies in seizing, not in killing, the game.
Hence, when a grisly does take to game-killing,
it is likely to attack bison, moose, and elk; it is
rarely able to catch deer, still less sheep or ante-
lope. In fact, these smaller game animals often
show but little dread of its neighborhood, and,
though careful not to let it come too near, go
on grazing when a bear is in full sight. White-
tail deer are frequently foimd at home in the
same thicket in which a bear has its den, while
they immediately desert the temporary abiding-
place of a wolf or cougar. Nevertheless, they
sometimes presume too much on this confidence.

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 57

A couple of years before the occurrence of the
feats of cattle-killing mentioned above as hap-
pening near my ranch, either the same bear that
figured in them, or another of similar tastes, took
to game-hunting. The beast lived in the same
succession of huge thickets which cover for two
or three miles the river bottoms and the mouths
of the inflowing creeks; and he suddenly made
a raid on the whitetail deer, which were plentiful
in the dense cover. The shaggy, clumsy monster
was cunning enough to kill several of these know-
ing creatures. The exact course of procedure I
never could find out; but apparently the bear
laid in wait beside the game trails, along which
the deer wandered.

In the old days when the innumerable bison
grazed free on the prairie, the grisly sometimes
harassed their bands as it now does the herds
of the ranchman. The bison was the most easily
approached of all game, and the great bear could
often get near some outlying straggler, in its quest
after stray cows, yearlings, or calves. In default
of a favorable chance to make a prey of one of
these weaker members of the herds, it did not
hesitate to attack the mighty bulls themselves;
and perhaps the grandest sight which it was ever
the good fortune of the early hunters to witness
was one of these rare battles between a hungry
grisly and a powerful buffalo bull. Nowadays,

58 The Wilderness Hunter

however, the few last survivors of the bison are
vanishing even from the inaccessible mountain
fastnesses in which they sought a final refuge
from their destroyers.

At present the wapiti is of all wild game that
which is most likely to fall a victim to the grisly,
when the big bear is in the mood to turn hunter.
Wapiti are found in the same places as the grisly,
and in some spots they are yet very plentiful;
they are less shy and active than deer, while not
powerful enough to beat off so ponderous a foe;
and they live in cover where there is always a
good chance either to stalk or to stumble on
them. At almost any season bear will come and
feast on an elk carcass; and if the food supply
runs short, in early spring, or in a fall when the
berry crop fails, they sometimes have to do their
own killing. Twice I have come across the re-
mains of elk, which had seemingly been slain
and devoured by bears. I have never heard of
elk making a fight against a bear; yet, at close
quarters and at bay, a bull elk in the rutting sea-
son is an ugly foe.

A bull moose is even more formidable, being
able to strike the most lightning-like blows with
his terrible fore feet, his true weapons of defence.
I doubt if any beast of prey would rush in on
one of these woodland giants, when his horns
were grown, and if he was on his guard and bent

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 59

on fight. Nevertheless, the moose sometimes fall
victims to the uncouth prowess of the grisly, in
the thick wet forests of the high northern Rockies,
where both beasts dwell. An old hunter who a
dozen years ago wintered at Jackson Lake, in
northwestern Wyoming, told me that when the
snows got deep on the mountains the moose came
down and took up their abode near the lake, on
its western side. Nothing molested them during
the winter. Early in the spring a grisly came
out of its den, and he found its tracks in many
places, as it roamed restlessly about, evidently
very hungry. Finding little to eat in the bleak,
snow-drifted w^oods, it soon began to depredate
on the moose, and killed two or three, generally
by lying in wait and dashing out on them as
they passed near its lurking-place. Even the
bulls were at that season weak, and of course
hornless, with small desire to fight; and in each
case the rush of the great bear — doubtless made
with the ferocity and speed which so often belie
the seeming awkwardness of the animal — bore
down the startled victim, taken utterly unawares
before it had a chance to defend itself. In one
case the bear had missed its spring; the moose
going off, for a few rods, with huge jumps,
and then settling down into its characteristic
trot. The old hunter who followed the tracks
said he would never have deemed it possible for

6o The Wilderness Hunter

any animal to make such strides while in a
trot.

Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally, not
normally, a formidable predatory beast, a killer
of cattle and of large game. Although capable
of far swifter movement than is promised. by his
frame of seemingly clumsy strength, and in spite
of his power of charging with astonishing sud-
denness and speed, he yet lacks altogether the
supple agility of such finished destroyers as the
cougar and the wolf ; and for the absence of this
agility no amount of mere huge muscle can atone.
He is more apt to feast on animals which have
met their death by accident, or which have been
killed by other beasts or by man, than to do his
own killing. He is a very foul feeder, with a
strong relish for carrion, and possesses a grew-
some and cannibal fondness for the flesh of his
own kind ; a bear carcass will toll a brother bear
to the ambushed hunter better than almost any
other bait, unless it is the carcass of a horse.

Nor do these big bears always content them-
selves merely with the carcasses of their breth-
ren. A black bear would have a poor chance if
in the clutches of a large, hungry grisly; and an
old male will kill and eat a cub, especially if he
finds it at a disadvantage. A rather remarkable
instance of this occurred in the Yellowstone
National Park, in the spring of 1891. The in-

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 6i

cident is related in the following letter written
to Mr. William Hallett Phillips, of Washington,
by another friend, Mr. Elwood Hofer. Hofer is
an old mountain-man; I have hunted with him
myself, and know his statements to be trust-
worthy. He was, at the time, at work in the
Park getting animals for the National Museum
at Washington, and was staying at Yancey's
"hotel" near Tower Falls. His letter, which
was dated June 21, 1891, runs in part as fol-
lows:

''I had a splendid Grizzly or Roachback cub
and was going to send him into the Springs next
morning the team was here, I heard a racket out
side went out and found him dead an old bear
that made an 9 1-2 inch track had killed and
partly eaten him. Last night another one came,
one that made an 8 1-2 inch track, and broke
Yancey up in the milk business. You know how
the cabins stand here. There is a hitching post
between the saloon and old house, the little bear
was killed there. In a creek close by was a milk
house, last night another bear came there and
smashed the whole thing up, leaving nothing
but a few flattened buckets and pans and boards.
I was sleeping in the old cabin, I heard the tin
ware rattle but thought it was all right supposed
it was cows or horses about. I don't care about
the milk but the damn cuss dug up the remains

62 The Wilderness Hunter

of the cub I had buried in the old ditch, he visited
the old meat house but found nothing. Bear are
very thick in this part of the Park, and are getting
very fresh. I sent in the game to Capt. Ander-
son, hear its doing well."

Grislies are fond of fish; and on the Pacific
slope, where the salmon run, they, like so many
other beasts, travel many scores of miles and
crowd down to the rivers to gorge themselves
upon the fish which are thrown up on the banks.
Wading into the water a bear will knock out the
salmon right and left when they are running
thick.

Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly' s
ordinary diet. At most times the big bear is a
grubber in the ground, an eater of insects, roots,
nuts, and berries. Its dangerous fore claws are
normally used to overturn stones and knock rot-
ten logs to pieces, that it may lap up the small
tribes of darkness which swarm under the one
and in the other. It digs up the camas roots,
wild onions, and an occasional luckless wood-
chuck or gopher. If food is very plenty bears
are lazy, but commonly they are obliged to be
very industrious, it being no light task to gather
enough ants, beetles, crickets, tumble-bugs, roots,
and nuts to satisfy the cravings of so huge a bulk.
The sign of a bear's work is, of course, evident
to the most unpractised eye ; and in no way can

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 63

one get a better idea of the brute's power than
by watching it busily working for its breakfast,
shattering big logs and upsetting boulders by
sheer strength. There is always a touch of the
comic, as well as a touch of the strong and terri-
ble, in a bear's look and actions. It will tug and
pull, now with one paw, now with two, now on
all fours, now on its hind legs, in the effort to
turn over a large log or stone; and when it suc-
ceeds it jumps round to thrust its muzzle into
the damp hollow and lap up the affrighted mice
or beetles while they are still paralyzed by the
sudden exposure.

The true time of plenty for bears is the berry
season. Then they feast ravenously on huckle-
berries, blueberries, kinnikinic berries, buffalo
berries, wild plums, elderberries, and scores of
other fruits. They often smash all the bushes
in a berry patch, gathering the fruit with half-
luxurious, half-laborious greed, sitting on their
haunches, and sweeping the berries into their
mouths with dexterous paws. So absorbed do
they become in their feasts on the luscious fruit
that they grow reckless of their safety, and
feed in broad daylight, almost at midday; while
in some of the thickets, especially those of the
mountain haws, they make so much noise in
smashing the branches that it is a comparatively
easy matter to approach them unheard. That

64 The Wilderness Hunter

still-hunter is in luck who in the fall finds an ac-
cessible berry-covered hillside which is haunted
by bears ; but, as a rule, the berry bushes do not
grow close enough together to give the hunter
much chance.

Like most other wild animals, bears which
have known the neighborhood of man are beasts
of the darkness, or at least of the dusk and the
gloaming. But they are by no means such true
night-lovers as the big cats and the wolves. In
regions where they know little of hunters they
roam about freely in the daylight, and in cool
weather are even apt to take their noontide slum-
bers basking in the sun. Where they are much
hunted they finally almost reverse their natural
habits and sleep throughout the hours of light,
only venturing abroad after nightfall and before
sunrise; but even yet this is not the habit of
those bears which exist in the wilder localities
where they are still plentiful. In these places
they sleep, or at least rest, during the hours of
greatest heat, and again in the middle part of
the night, unless there is a full moon. They
start on their rambles for food about mid-after-
noon, and end their morning roaming soon after
the sun is above the horizon. If the moon is full,
however, they may feed all night long, and then
wander but little in the daytime.

Aside from man, the full-grown grisly has

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 65

hardly any foe to fear. Nevertheless, in the
early spring, when weakened by the hunger that
succeeds the winter sleep, it behooves even the
grisly, if he dwells in the mountain fastnesses of
the far Northwest, to beware of a famished troop
of great timber wolves. These northern Rocky
Mountain wolves are most formidable beasts, and
when many of them band together in time of fam-
ine they do not hesitate to pounce on the black
bear and cougar; and even a full-grown grisly is
not safe from their attacks, unless he can back
up against some rock which will prevent them
from assailing him from behind. A small ranch-
man whom I knew well, who lived near Flathead
Lake, once in April found where a troop of these
wolves had killed a good-sized yearling grisly.
Either cougar or wolf will make a prey of a grisly
which is but a few months old; while any fox,
lynx, wolverine, or fisher will seize the very
young cubs. The old story about wolves fearing
to feast on game killed by a grisly is all nonsense.
Wolves are canny beasts, and they will not ap-
proach a carcass if they think a bear is hidden
near by and likely to rush out at them; but
under ordinary circumstances they will feast not
only on the carcasses of the grisly' s victims, but
on the carcass of the grisly himself after he has
been slain and left by the hunter. Of course,
wolves would only attack a grisly if in the most

VOL. II.— 5.

66 The Wilderness Hunter

desperate straits for food, as even a victory over
such an antagonist must be purchased with
heavy loss of life ; and a hungry grisly would de-
vour either a wolf or a cougar, or any one of the
smaller camivora off-hand if it happened to cor-
ner it where it could not get away.

The grisly occasionally makes its den in a cave
and spends therein the midday hours. But this
is rare. Usually it lies in the dense shelter of the
most tangled piece of woods in the neighborhood,
choosing by preference some bit where the yoimg
growth is thick and the ground strewn with
boulders and fallen logs. Often, especially if in
a restless mood and roaming much over the
cotmtry, it merely makes a temporary bed, in
which it lies but once or twice ; and again it may
make a more permanent lair or series of lairs,
spending many consecutive nights in each. Us-
ually the lair or bed is made some distance from
the f eeding-groimd ; but bold bears, in very wild
localities, may lie close by a carcass, or in the
middle of a berry-ground. The deer-killing bear
above mentioned had evidently dragged two or
three of his victims to his den, which was under
an impenetrable mat of buUberries and dwarf
box-alders, hemmed in by a cut bank on one
side and a wall of gnarled cottonwoods on the
other. Roimd this den, and rendering it noi-
some, were scattered the bones of several deer

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 67

and a young steer or heifer. When we found
it we thought we could easily kill the bear, but the
fierce, cunning beast must have seen or smelt us,
for though we laid in wait for it long and pa-
tiently, it did not come back to its place; nor,
on our subsequent visits, did we ever find traces
of its having done so.

Bear are fond of wallowing in the water, whether
in the sand, on the edge of a rapid plains river, on
the muddy margin of a pond, or in the oozy moss
of a clear, cold mountain spring. One hot August
afternoon, as I was clambering down a steep
mountain-side near Pend Oreille Lake, I heard a
crash some distance below, which showed that a
large beast was afoot. On making my way towards
the spot, I found I had disturbed a big bear as it
was lolling at ease in its bath; the discolored
water showed where it had scrambled hastily
out and galloped off as I approached. The spring
welled out at the base of a high granite rock,
forming a small pool of shimmering broken crystal.
The soaked moss lay in a deep wet cushion round
about, and jutted over the edges of the pool like a
floating shelf. Graceful, water-loving ferns swayed
to and fro. Above, the great conifers spread their
murmuring branches, dimming the light, and
keeping out the heat; their brown boles sprang
from the ground like buttressed columns. On
the barren mountain-side beyond, the heat was

68 The Wilderness Hunter

oppressive. It was small wonder that Bruin should
have sought the spot to cool his gross carcass in
the fresh spring water.

The bear is a solitary beast, and although many
may assemble together in what looks like a drove,
on some favorite feeding-ground — usually where
the berries are thick, or by the banks of a salmon-
thronged river — the association is never more than
momentary, each going its own way as soon as its
hunger is satisfied. The males always live alone
by choice, save in the rutting season, when they
seek the females. Then two or three may come to-
gether in the course of their pursuit and rough
courtship of the female ; and if the rivals are well
matched, savage battles follow, so that many of
the old males have their heads seamed with scars
made by their fellows' teeth. At such times they
are evil tempered and prone to attack man or
beast on slight provocation.

The she brings forth her cubs, one, two, or three
in number, in her winter den. They are very small
and helpless things, and it is some time after she
leaves her winter home before they can follow her
for any distance. They stay with her throughout
the summer and the fall, leaving her when the cold
weather sets in. By this time they are well grown ;
and hence, especially if an old male has joined the
she, the family may number three or four individ-
uals, so as to make what seems like quite a little

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 69

troop of bears. A small ranchman who lived a
dozen miles from me on the Little Missouri once
found a she-bear and three half -grown cubs feed-
ing at a berry-patch in a ravine. He shot the old
she in the small of the back, whereat she made a
loud roaring and squealing. One of the cubs
rushed towards her ; but its sympathy proved mis-
placed, for she knocked it over with a hearty cuff,
either out of mere temper, or because she thought
her pain must be due to an unprovoked assault
from one of her offspring. The hunter then killed
one of the cubs, and the other two escaped. When
bears are together and one is wotmded by a bullet,
but does not see the real assailant, it often falls
tooth and nail upon its comrade, apparently at-
tributing its injury to the latter.

Bears are hunted in many ways. Some are
killed by poison; but this plan is only practised
by the owners of cattle or sheep who have suffered
from their ravages. Moreover, they are harder to
poison than wolves. Most often they are killed in
traps — which are sometimes dead-falls, on the prin-
ciple of the little figure-4 trap familiar to every
American country boy, sometimes log-pens in
which the animal is taken alive, but generally huge
steel gins. In some States there is a bounty for the
destruction of grislies; and in many places their
skins have a market price, although much less
valuable than those of the black bear. The men

70 The Wilderness Hunter

who pursue them for the bounty, or for their fur,
as well as the ranchmen who regard them as foes to
stock, ordinarily use steel traps. The trap is very
massive, needing no small strength to set, and it is
usually chained to a bar or log of wood, which does
not stop the bear's progress outright, but hampers
and interferes with it, continually catching in tree
stumps and the like. The animal when trapped
makes off at once, biting at the trap and the bar ;
but it leaves a broad wake, and sooner or later is
found tangled up by the chain and bar. A bear is
by no means so difficult to trap as a wolf or fox,
although more so than a cougar or a lynx. In wild
regions a skilful trapper can often catch a great
many with comparative ease. A cimning old
grisly, however, soon learns the danger, and is then
almost impossible to trap, as it either avoids the
neighborhood altogether or finds out some way
by which to get at the bait without springing
the trap, or else deliberately springs it first. I
have been told of bears which spring traps by
rolling across them, the iron jaws slipping harm-
lessly off the big round body. An old horse is
the most common bait.

It is, of course, all right to trap bears when
they are followed merely as vermin or for the
sake of the fur. Occasionally, however, himters
who are out merely for sport adopt this method;
but this shoiild never be done. To shoot a

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 71

trapped bear for sport is a thoroughly unsports-
manlike proceeding. A ftinny plea sometimes ad-
vanced in its favor is that it is " dangerous." No
doubt in exceptional instances this is true ; ex-
actly as it is true that in exceptional instances it
is '' dangerous " for a butcher to knock over a steer
in the slaughter-house. A bear caught only by the
toes may wrench itself free as the hunter comes
near, and attack him with pain-maddened fury;
or if followed at once, and if the trap and bar are
light, it may be found in some thicket, still free,
and in a frenzy of rage. But even in such cases the
beast has been crippled, and though crazy with
pain and anger is easily dealt with by a good shot ;
while ordinarily the poor brute is found in the last
stages of exhaustion, tied tight to a tree where
the log or bar has caught, its teeth broken to
splintered stumps by rabid snaps at the cruel
trap and chain. Some trappers kill the trapped
grislies with a revolver; so that it may easily be
seen that the sport is not normally dangerous.
Two of my own cowboys, Seawell and Dow, were
originally from Maine, where they had trapped
a number of black bears ; and they always killed
them either with a hatchet or a small 3 2 -calibre
revolver. One of them, Seawell, once came near
being mauled by a trapped bear, seemingly at the
last gasp, which he approached incautiously with
his hatchet.

72 The Wilderness Hunter

There is, however, one very real danger to
which the solitary bear-trapper is exposed, the
danger of being caught in his own trap. The
huge jaws of the gin are easy to spring and most
hard to open. If an unwary passer-by should
tread between them and be caught by the leg,
his fate would be doubtful, though he would
probably die under the steadily growing torment
of the merciless iron jaws, as they pressed ever
deeper into the sore flesh and broken bones. But
if caught by the arms, while setting or fixing the
trap, his fate would be in no doubt at all, for it
would be impossible for the stoutest man to free
himself by any means. Terrible stories are told
of solitary mountain hunters who disappeared,
and were found years later in the lonely wilder-
ness, as mouldering skeletons, the shattered bones
of the forearms still held in the rusty jaws of
the gin.

Doubtless the grisly could be successfully
hunted with dogs, if the latter were carefully
bred and trained to the purpose, but as yet this
has not been done, and though dogs are some-
times used as adjuncts in grisly hunting they are
rarely of much service. It is sometimes said
that very small dogs are the best for this end.
But this is only so with grislies that have never
been himted. In such a case the big bear some-
times becomes so irritated with the bouncing,

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 7^

yapping little terriers or fice-dogs that he may
try to catch them and thus permit the hunter to
creep upon him. But the minute he realizes, as he
speedily does, that the man is his real foe, he pays
no further heed whatever to the little dogs, who
can then neither bring him to bay nor hinder his
flight. Ordinary hounds, of the kinds used in
the South for fox, deer, wild-cat, and black bear,
are but little better. I have known one or two
men who at different times tried to hunt the
grisly with a pack of hounds and fice-dogs wonted
to the chase of the black bear, but they never
met with success. This was probably largely
owing to the nature of the country in which they
himted, a vast tangled mass of forest and craggy
motmtain; but it was also due to the utter in-
ability of the dogs to stop the quarry from break-
ing bay when it wished. Several times a grisly
was bayed, but always in some inaccessible spot
which it took hard climbing to reach, and the
dogs were never able to hold the beast until the
himters came up.

Still a well-trained pack of large hounds, which
were both bold and cunning, could doubtless bay
even a grisly. Such dogs are the big half-breed
hounds sometimes used in the Alleghanies of West
Virginia, which are trained not merely to nip a
bear, but to grip him by the hock as he runs
and either throw him or twirl him roimd. A

74 The Wilderness Hunter

grisly could not disregard a wary and power-
ful hound capable of performing this trick,
even though he paid small heed to mere barking
and occasional nipping. Nor do I doubt that it
would be possible to get together a pack of
many large, fierce dogs, trained to dash straight
at the head and hold on like a vice, which could
fairly master a grisly and, though unable, of
course, to kill him, would worry him breathless
and hold him down so that he could be slain with
ease. There have been instances in which five
or six of the big so-called bloodhounds of the
Southern States — not pure bloodhounds at all,
but huge, fierce, ban-dogs, with a cross of the
ferocious Cuban bloodhound, to give them good
scenting powers — ^have by themselves mastered
the cougar and the black bear. Such instances
occurred in the hunting history of my own fore-
fathers on my mother's side, who during the last
half of the eighteenth, and the first half of the
present, century lived in Georgia and over the
border in what are now Alabama and Florida.
These big dogs can only overcome such foes by
rushing in in a body and grappling all together;
if they hang back, lunging and snapping, a cou-
gar or bear will destroy them one by one. With
a quarry so huge and redoubtable as the grisly,
no number of dogs, however large and fierce,
could overcome him unless they all rushed on

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 75

him in a mass, the first in the charge seizing by
the head or throat. If the dogs hung back, or if
there were only a few of them, or if they did not
seize around the head, they would be destroyed
without an effort. It is murder to slip merely
one or two close-quarter dogs at a grisly. Twice
I have known a man take a large bulldog with
his pack when after one of these big bears, and
in each case the result was the same. In one
instance the bear was trotting when the bulldog
seized it by the cheek, and without so much as
altering its gait, it brushed off the hanging dog
with a blow from the fore paw that broke the
latter' s back. In the other instance the bear had
come to bay, and when seized by the ear it got
the dog's body up to its jaws, and tore out the
life with one crunch.

A small number of dogs must rely on their
activity, and must hamper the bear's escape by
inflicting a severe bite and avoiding the counter-
stroke. The only dog I ever heard of which,
single-handed, was really of service in stopping
a grisly, was a big Mexican sheep-dog, once owned
by the hunter Tazewell Woody. It was an, agile
beast with powerful jaws, and possessed both in-
telligence and a fierce, resolute temper. Woody
killed three grislies with its aid. It attacked
with equal caution and ferocity, rushing at the
bear as the latter ran, and seizing the outstretched

76 The Wilderness Hunter

hock with a grip of iron, stopping the bear short,
but letting go before the angry beast could whirl
round and seize it. It was so active and wary
that it always escaped damage; and it was so
strong and bit so severely that the bear could
not possibly run from it at any speed. In conse-
quence, if it once came to close quarters with its
quarry, Woody could always get near enough
for a shot.

Hitherto, however, the mountain hunters — as
distinguished from the trappers — who have fol-
lowed the grisly have relied almost solely on
their rifles. In my own case about half the bears
I have killed I stumbled across almost by acci-
dent; and probably this proportion holds good
generally. The hunter may be after bear at the
time, or he may be after blacktail deer or elk,
the common game in most of the hatmts of the
grisly; or he may merely be travelling through
the country or prospecting for gold. Suddenly
he comes over the edge of a cut bank, or round
the sharp spur of a mountain or the shoulder of
a cliff which walls in a ravine, or else the indis-
tinct game trail he has been following through
the great trees twists sharply to one side to avoid
a rock or a mass of down timber, and, behold, he
surprises Old Ephraim digging for roots, or mimch-
ing berries, or slouching along the path, or per-
haps rising suddenly from the lush, rank plants

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear n

amid which he has been lying. Or it may be
that the bear will be spied afar rooting in an open
glade or on a bare hillside.

In the still-hunt proper it is necessary to find
some favorite feeding-groimd, where there are
many roots or berry-bearing bushes, or else to
lure the grisly to a carcass. This last method of
"baiting" for bear is imder ordinary circum-
stances the only way which affords even a mod-
erately fair chance of killing them. They are
very cunning, with the sharpest of noses, and
where they have had experience of hunters
they dwell only in cover where it is almost im-
possible for the best of still-hunters to approach
them.

Nevertheless, in favorable ground a man can
often find and kill them by fair stalking, in berry-
time, or more especially in the early spring, be-
fore the snow has gone from the mountains, and
while the bears are driven by hunger to roam
much abroad and sometimes to seek their food in
the open. In such cases the still-hunter is stir-
ring by the earliest dawn, and walks with stealthy
speed to some high point of observation from
which he can overlook the feeding-grounds where
he has previously discovered sign. From the
coign of vantage he scans the country far and
near, either with his own keen eyes or with power-
ful glasses; and he must combine patience and

y^ The Wilderness Hunter

good sight with the abiHty to traverse long dis-
tances noiselessly and yet at speed. He may
spend two or three hours sitting still and look-
ing over a vast tract of country before he will
suddenly spy a bear ; or he may see nothing after
the most careful search in a given place, and must
then go on half a dozen miles to another, watch-
ing warily as he walks, and continuing this possi-
bly for several days before getting a glimpse of
his game. If the bear are digging roots, or other-
wise procuring their food on the bare hillsides
and table-lands, it is of course comparatively
easy to see them; and it is under such circum-
stances that this kind of hunting is most success-
ful. Once seen, the actual stalk may take two
or three hours, the nature of the ground and
the direction of the wind often necessitating a
long circuit; perhaps a gully, a rock, or a fallen
log offers a chance for an approach to within
two hundred yards, and although the hunter will,
if possible, get much closer than this, yet even at
such a distance a bear is a large enough mark to
warrant risking a shot.

Usually the berry-grounds do not offer such
favorable opportunities, as they often lie in thick
timber, or are covered so densely with bushes as
to obstruct the view; and they are rarely com-
manded by a favorable spot from which to spy.
On the other hand, as already said, bears occa-

Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear 79

sionally forget all their watchfulness while de-
vouring fruit, and make such a noise rending and
tearing the bushes that, if once found, a man can
creep upon them unobserved.

CHAPTER IV

HUNTING THE GRISLY

IF out in the late fall or early spring, it is often
possible to follow a bear's trail in the snow;
having come upon it either by chance or
hard hunting, or else having found where it
leads from some carcass on which the beast has
been feeding. In the pursuit one must exercise
great caution, as at such times the hunter is easily
seen a long way off, and game is always especially
watchful for any foe that may follow its trail.

Once I killed a grisly in this manner. It was
early in the fall, but snow lay on the groimd,
while the gray weather boded a storm. My camp
was in a bleak, wind-swept valley, high among
the mountains which form the divide between
the head-waters of the Salmon and Clarke's Fork
of the Columbia. All night I had lain in my
buffalo-bag, under the lee of a windbreak of
branches, in the clump of fir-trees, where I had
halted the preceding evening. At my feet ran a
rapid mountain torrent, its bed choked with ice-
covered rocks ; I had been lulled to sleep by the
stream's splashing murmur, and the loud moan-

80

Hunting the Grisly 8i

ing of the wind along the naked cliffs. At dawn
I rose and shook myself free of the buffalo-robe,
coated with hoar-frost. The ashes of the fire
were lifeless; in the dim morning the air was
bitter cold. I did not linger a moment, but
snatched up my rifle, pulled on my fur cap and
gloves, and strode off up a side ravine; as I
walked I ate some mouthfuls of venison, left over
from supper.

Two hours of toil up the steep mountain brought
me to the top of a spur. The sun had risen, but
was hidden behind a bank of sullen clouds. On
the divide I halted, and gazed out over a vast
landscape, inconceivably wild and dismal. Around
me towered the stupendous mountain masses
which make up the backbone of the Rockies.
From my feet, as far as I could see, stretched a
rugged and barren chaos of ridges and detached
rock masses. Behind me, far below, the stream
woimd like a silver ribbon, fringed with dark
conifers and the changing, dying foliage of poplar
and quaking aspen. In front the bottoms of the
valley were filled with the sombre evergreen forest,
dotted here and there with black, ice-skimmed
tarns ; and the dark spruces clustered also in the
higher gorges, and were scattered thinly along the
mountain-sides. The snow which had fallen lay
in drifts and streaks, while, where the wind had
scope, it was blown off, and the ground left bare.

VOL. II. — 6.

S2 The Wilderness Hunter

For two hours I walked onwards across the
ridges and valleys. Then among some scattered
spruces, where the snow lay to the depth of half
a foot, I suddenly came on the fresh, broad trail
of a grisly. The brute was evidently roam-
ing restlessly about in search of a winter den, but
willing, in passing, to pick up any food that lay
handy. At once I took the trail, travelling above
and to one side, and keeping a sharp lookout
ahead. The bear was going across wind, and
this made my task easy. I walked rapidly
though cautiously; and it was only in crossing
the large patches of bare ground that I had to fear
making a noise. Elsewhere the snow muffled my
footsteps, and made the trail so plain that I
scarcely had to waste a glance upon it, bending
my eyes always to the front.

At last, peering cautiously over a ridge crowned
with broken rocks, I saw my quarry, a big burly
bear, with silvered fur. He had halted on an
open hillside, and was busily digging up the
caches of some rock gophers or squirrels. He
seemed absorbed in his work, and the stalk was
easy. Slipping quietly back, I ran towards the
end of the spur, and in ten minutes struck a ravine,
of which one branch ran past within seventy
yards of where the bear was working. In this
ravine was a rather close growth of stunted ever-
greens, affording good cover, although in one or

Hunting the Grisly 83

two places I had to lie down and crawl through
the snow. When I reached the point for which
I was aiming, the bear had just finished rooting,
and was starting off. A slight whistle brought
him to a standstill, and I drew a bead behind
his shoulder, and low down, resting the rifle across
the crooked branch of a dwarf spruce. At the
crack he ran off at speed, making no sound, but
the thick spatter of blood splashes, showing clear
on the white snow, betrayed the mortal nature
of the wound. For some minutes I followed the
trail; and then, topping a ridge, I saw the dark
bulk lying motionless in a snowdrift at the foot
of a low rock- wall, down which he had tumbled.

The usual practice of the still-hunter who is
after grisly is to toll it to baits. The htmter either
lies in ambush near the carcass, or approaches it
stealthily when he thinks the bear is at its meal.

One day while camped near the Bitter Root
Mountains in Montana I found that a bear had
been feeding on the carcass of a moose which lay
some five miles from the little open glade in which
my tent was pitched, and I made up my mind
to try to get a shot at it that afternoon. I stayed
in camp till about three o'clock, lying lazily back
on the bed of sweet-smelling evergreen boughs,
watching the pack-ponies as they stood imder
the pines on the edge of the open, stamping now
and then, and switching their tails. The air

84 The Wilderness Hunter

was still, the sky a glorious blue; at that hour
in the afternoon even the September sun was hot.
The smoke from the smouldering logs of the camp-
fire curled thinly upwards. Little chipmunks
scuttled out from their holes to the packs, which
lay in a heap on the ground, and then scuttled
madly back again. A couple of drab-colored
whisky-jacks, with bold mien and fearless bright
eyes, hopped and fluttered round, picking up the
scraps, and uttering an extraordinary variety of
notes, mostly discordant ; so tame were they that
one of them lit on my outstretched arm as I half
dozed, basking in the sunshine.

When the shadows began to lengthen, I shoul-
dered my rifle and plunged into the woods. At
first my route lay along a mountain-side; then
for half a mile over a windfall, the dead timber
piled about in crazy confusion. After that I
went up the bottom of a valley by a little brook,
the ground being carpeted with a sponge of
soaked moss. At the head of this brook was a
pond covered with water-lilies; and a scramble
through a rocky pass took me into a high, wet
valley, where the thick growth of spruce was
broken by occasional strips of meadow. In this
valley the moose carcass lay, well at the upper
end.

In moccasined feet I trod softly through the
sotmdless woods. Under the dark branches it

Hunting the Grisly 85

was already dusk, and the air had the cool chill
of evening. As I neared the clump where the
body lay, I walked with redoubled caution,
watching and listening with strained alertness.
Then I heard a twig snap ; and my blood leaped,
for I knew the bear was at his supper. In another
moment I saw his shaggy, brown form. He was
working with all his awkward strength, trying to
bury the carcass, twisting it to one side and the
other with wonderful ease. Once he got angry,
and suddenly gave it a tremendous cuff with his
paw; in his bearing he had something half hu-
morous, half devilish. I crept up within forty
yards ; but for several minutes he would not keep
his head still. Then something attracted his at-
tention in the forest, and he stood motionless
looking towards it, broadside to me, with his
fore paws planted on the carcass. This gave me
my chance. I drew a very fine bead between
his eye and ear, and pulled trigger. He dropped
like a steer when struck with a pole-axe.

If there is a good hiding-place handy it is bet-
ter to lie in wait at the carcass. One day on the
head- waters of the Madison, I found that a bear
was coming to an elk I had shot some days be-
fore; and I at once determined to ambush the
beast when he came back that evening. The
carcass lay in the middle of a valley a quarter
of a mile broad. The bottom of this valley was

86 The Wilderness Hunter

covered by an open forest of tall pines; a thick
jungle of smaller evergreens marked where the
mountains rose on either hand. There were a
number of large rocks scattered here and there,
one, of very convenient shape, being only some
seventy or eighty yards from the carcass. Up
this I clambered. It hid me perfectly, and on
its top was a carpet of soft pine-needles, on which
I could lie at my ease.

Hour after hour passed by. A little black
woodpecker with a yellow crest ran nimbly up
and down the tree-trunks for some time and then
flitted away with a party of chickadees and nut-
hatches. Occasionally a Clarke's crow soared
about overhead or clung in any position to the
swaying end of a pine branch, chattering and
screaming. Flocks of cross-bills, with wavy flight
and plaintive calls, flew to a small mineral lick
near by, where they scraped the clay with their
queer little beaks.

As the westering sun sank out of sight beyond
the mountains these sounds of bird-life gradually
died away. Under the great pines the evening
was still with the silence of primeval desolation.
The sense of sadness and loneliness, the melan-
choly of the wilderness, came over me like a
spell. Every slight noise made my pulses throb
as I lay motionless on the rock gazing intently
into the gathering gloom. I began to fear that

Hunting the Grisly 87

it would grow too dark to shoot before the grisly
came.

Suddenly and without warning, the great bear
stepped out of the bushes and trod across the
pine-needles with such swift and silent footsteps
that its bulk seemed unreal. It was very cau-
tious, continually halting to peer around; and
once it stood up on its hind legs and looked long
down the valley towards the red west. As it
reached the carcass I put a bullet between its
shoulders. It rolled over, while the woods re-
sounded with its savage roaring. Immediately
it struggled to its feet and staggered off; and
fell again to the next shot, squalling and yelling.
Twice this was repeated; the brute being one of
those bears which greet every wound with a great
outcry, and sometimes seem to lose their feet
when hit — although they will occasionally fight
as savagely as their more silent brethren. In
this case the wounds were mortal, and the bear
died before reaching the edge of the thicket.

I spent much of the fall of 1889 hunting on
the head-waters of the Salmon and Snake in Idaho
and along the Montana boundary line from the
Big Hole Basin and the head of the Wisdom
River to the neighborhood of Red Rock Pass and
to the north and west of Henry's Lake. During
the last fortnight my companion was the old
mountain -man, already mentioned, named Grif-

88 The Wilderness Hunter

feth or Griffin — I cannot tell which, as he was
always called either "Hank" or "GriflE." He
was a crabbedly honest old fellow, and a very
skilful hiuiter ; but he was worn out with age and
rheumatism, and his temper had failed even
faster than his bodily strength. He showed me
a greater variety of game than I had ever seen
before in so short a time; nor did I ever before
or after make so successful a hunt. But he was
an exceedingly disagreeable companion on ac-
count of his surly, moody ways. I generally had
to get up first, to kindle the fire and make ready
breakfast, and he was very quarrelsome. Finally,
during my absence from camp one day, while not
very far from Red Rock Pass, he found my whisky-
flask, which I kept purely for emergencies, and
drank all the contents. When I came back he
was quite drunk. This was unbearable, and after
some high words I left him, and struck oif home-
ward through the woods on my own account.
We had with us four pack and saddle horses;
and of these I took a very intelligent and gentle
little bronco mare, which possessed the invalu-
able trait of always staying near camp, even when
not hobbled. I was not hampered with much
of an outfit, having only my buffalo sleeping-bag,
a fur coat, and my washing kit, with a couple of
spare pairs of socks and some handkerchiefs. A
frying-pan, some salt, flour, baking-powder, a

Hunting the Grisly 89

small chunk of salt pork, and a hatchet, made
up a light pack, which, with the bedding, I fas-
tened across the stock saddle by means of a rope
and a spare packing cinch. My cartridges and
knife were in my belt ; my compass and matches,
as always, in my pocket. I walked, while the
little mare followed almost like a dog, often with-
out my having to hold the lariat which served as
halter.

The country was for the most part fairly open,
as I kept near the foothills where glades and
little prairies broke the pine forest. The trees
were of small size. There was no regular trail,
but the course was easy to keep, and I had no
trouble of any kind save on the second day. That
afternoon I was following a stream which at last
"canyoned up," that is, sank to the bottom of a
canyon-like ravine impassable for a horse. I
started up a side valley, intending to cross from
its head coulies to those of another valley which
would lead in below the canyon.

However, I got enmeshed in the tangle of wind-
ing valleys at the foot of the steep mountains, and
as dusk was coming on I halted and camped in a
little open spot by the side of a small, noisy brook,
with crystal water. The place was carpeted with
soft, wet, green moss, dotted red with the kinni-
kinic berries, and at its edge, imder the trees,
where the ground was dry, I threw down the

90 The Wilderness Hunter

buf!alo-bed on the mat of sweet-smelling pine-
needles. Making camp took but a moment. I
opened the pack, tossed the bedding on a smooth
spot, knee-haltered the little mare, dragged up a
few dry logs, and then strolled off, rifle on shoul-
der, through the frosty gloaming, to see if I could
pick up a grouse for supper.

For half a mile I walked quickly and silently
over the pine-needles, across a succession of slight
ridges separated by narrow, shallow valleys. The
forest here was composed of lodge-pole pines,
which on the ridges grew close together, with tall
slender trunks, while in the valleys the growth was
more open. Though the sun was behind the
moimtains there was yet plenty of light by which
to shoot, but it was fading rapidly.

At last, as I was thinking of turning towards
camp, I stole up to the crest of one of the ridges,
and looked over into the valley some sixty yards
off. Immediately I caught the loom of some
large, dark object; and another glance showed
me a big grisly walking slowly off with his head
down. He was quartering to me, and I fired into
his flank, the bullet, as I afterwards found, rang-
ing forward and piercing one lung. At the shot
he uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plimged
forward at a heavy gallop, while I raced obliquely
down the hill to cut him off. After going a few
hundred feet he reached a laurel thicket, some

Hunting the Grisly 91

thirty yards broad, and two or three times as
long, which he did not leave. I ran up to the
edge and there halted, not liking to venture into
the mass of twisted, close-growing stems and
glossy foliage. Moreover, as I halted, I heard
him utter a peculiar, savage kind of whine from
the heart of the brush. Accordingly, I began to
skirt the edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing
earnestly to see if I could not catch a glimpse of
his hide. When I was at the narrowest part of
the thicket, he suddenly left it directly opposite,
and then wheeled and stood broadside to me on
the hillside, a little above. He turned his head
stiffly towards me; scarlet strings of froth hung
from his lips ; his eyes burned like embers in the
gloom.

I held true, aiming behind the shoulder, and
my bullet shattered the point or lower end of his
heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the
great bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and
challenge, blowing the bloody foam from his
mouth so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs ;
and then he charged straight at me, crashing and
bounding through the laurel bushes, so that it
was hard to aim. I waited imtil he came to a
fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with a
ball, which entered his chest and went through
the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved nor
flinched, and at the moment I did not know that

92 The Wilderness Hunter

I had struck him. He came steadily on, and in
another second was almost upon me. I fired for
his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering
his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and
going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost
as I pulled trigger; and through the hanging
smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he
made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of
his charge carried him past. As he struck he
lurched forward, leaving a pool of bright blood
where his muzzle hit the ground; but he recov-
ered himself and made two or three jumps on-
wards, while I hurriedly jammed a couple of
cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding
only four, all of which I had fired. Then he
tried to pull up, but as he did so his muscles
seemed suddenly to give way, his head drooped,
and he rolled over and over like a shot rabbit.
Each of my first three bullets had inflicted a
mortal woimd.

It was already twilight, and I merely opened
the carcass, and then trotted back to camp. Next
morning I returned and with much labor took off
the skin. The fur was very fine, the animal being
in excellent trim, and tmusually bright-colored.
Unfortimately, in packing it out I lost the skull,
and had to supply its place with one of plaster.
The beauty of the trophy, and the memory of
the circumstances under which I procured it,

Hunting the Grisly 93

make me value it perhaps more highly than any-
other in my house.

This is the only instance in which I have been
regularly charged by a grisly. On the whole, the
danger of himting these great bears has been much
exaggerated. At the beginning of the present
century, when white hunters first encoimtered the
grisly, he was doubtless an exceedingly savage
beast, prone to attack without provocation, and
a redoubtable foe to persons armed with the
clumsy, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles of the
day. But at present bitter experience has taught
him caution. He has been htmted for sport, and
hunted for his pelt, and hunted for the boimty , and
hunted as a dangerous enemy to stock, imtil, save
in the very wildest districts, he has learned to be
more wary than a deer, and to avoid man's pres-
ence almost as carefully as the most timid kind
of game. Except in rare cases, he will not at-
tack of his own accord, and, as a rule, even when
wounded, his object is escape rather than battle.

Still, when fairly brought to bay, or when
moved by a sudden fit of imgovemable anger,
the grisly is beyond peradventure a very dan-
gerous antagonist. The first shot, if taken at a
bear a good distance off and previously un wounded
and unharried, is not usually fraught with much
danger, the startled animal being at the outset
bent merely on flight. It is always hazardous,

94 The Wilderness Hunter

however, to track a wovinded and worried grisly
into thick cover, and the man who habitually
follows and kills this chief of American game
in dense timber, never abandoning the bloody
trail whithersoever it leads, must show no small
degree of skill and hardihood, and must not too
closely cotmt the risk to life or limb. Bears differ
widely in temper, and occasionally one may be
found who will not show fight, no matter how
much he is bullied ; but, as a rule, a hunter must
be cautious in meddling with a wounded animal
which has retreated into a dense thicket, and has
been once or twice roused; and such a beast,
when it does turn, will usually charge again and
again, and fight to the last with unconquerable
ferocity. The short distance at which the bear
can be seen through the imderbrush, the fury of
his charge, and his tenacity of life make it neces-
sary for the hunter on such occasions to have
steady nerves and a fairly quick and accurate
aim. It is always well to have two men in fol-
lowing a wounded bear under such conditions.
This is not necessary, however, and a good hunter,
rather than lose his quarry, will, under ordinary
circumstances, follow and attack it, no matter
how tangled the fastness in which it has sought
refuge ; but he must act warily and with the ut-
most caution and resolution, if he wishes to escape
a terrible and probably fatal mauling. An ex-

Hunting the Grisly 95

perienced hiinter is rarely rash, and never heed-
less; he will not, when alone, follow a woiinded
bear into a thicket if, by the exercise of patience,
skill, and knowledge of the game's habits, he can
avoid the necessity; but it is idle to talk of the
feat as something which ought in no case to be
attempted. While danger ought never to be
needlessly incurred, it is yet true that the keenest
zest in sport comes from its presence, and from
the consequent exercise of the qualities necessary
to overcome it. The most thrilling moments of
an American htmter's life are those in which, with
every sense on the alert, and with nerves stnmg
to the highest point, he is following alone into
the heart of its forest fastness the fresh and bloody
footprints of an angered grisly; and no other
triumph of American hunting can compare with
the victory to be thus gained.

These big bears will not ordinarily charge from
a distance of over a htmdred yards; but there
are exceptions to this rule. In the fall of 1890 my
friend Archibald Rogers was hiinting in Wyom-
ing, south of the Yellowstone Park, and killed
seven bears. One, an old he, was out on a bare
table-land, grubbing for roots, when he was
spied. It was early in the afternoon, and the
hunters, who were on a high moimtain slope, ex-
amined him for some time through their powerful
glasses before making him out to be a bear. They

9^ The Wilderness Hunter

then stalked up to the edge of the wood which
fringed the table-land on one side, but could get
no nearer than about three hundred yards, the
plains being barren of all cover. After waiting
for a couple of hours, Rogers risked the shot, in
despair of getting nearer, and wounded the bear,
though not very seriously. The animal made off,
almost broadside to, and Rogers ran forward to
intercept it. As soon as it saw him it turned
and rushed straight for him, not heeding his
second shot, and evidently bent on charging home.
Rogers then waited until it was within twenty
yards, and brained it with his third bullet.

In fact, bears differ individually in courage and
ferocity precisely as men do, or as the Spanish
bulls, of which it is said that not more than one
in twenty is fit to stand the combat of the arena.
One grisly can scarcely be bullied into resistance ;
the next may fight to the end, against any odds,
without flinching, or may even attack unprovoked.
Hence, men of limited experience in this sport,
generalizing from the actions of the two or three
bears each has happened to see or kill, often reach
diametrically opposite conclusions as to the fight-
ing temper and capacity of the quarry. Even
old himters — who, indeed, as a class, are very
narrow-minded and opinionated — often general-
ize just as rashly as beginners. One will por-
tray all bears as very dangerous; another will

Hunting the Grisly 97

speak and act as if he deemed them of no more
consequence than so many rabbits. I knew one
old himter who had killed a score without ever
seeing one show fight. On the other hand, Dr.
James G. Merrill, U. S. A., who has had about as
much experience with bears as I have had, in-
forms me that he has been charged with the
utmost determination three times. In each case
the attack was delivered before the bear was
woimded or even shot at, the animal being
roused from his day-bed by the approach of the
himters, and charging headlong at them from a
distance of twenty or thirty paces. All three
bears were killed before they could do any dam-
age. There was a very remarkable incident
connected with the killing of one of them. It
occurred in the northern spurs of the Bighorn
range. Dr. Merrill, in company with an old
himter, had climbed down into a deep, narrow
canyon. The bottom was threaded with well-
beaten elk trails. While following one of these the
two men turned a comer of the canyon and were
instantly charged by an old she-grisly, so close
that it was only by good luck that one of the
hurried shots disabled her and caused her to
tumble over a cut bank where she was easily
finished. They foimd that she had been lying
directly across the game trail, on a smooth well-
beaten patch of bare earth, which looked as if it

VOL. II.— 7.

98 The Wilderness Hunter

had been dug up, refilled, and trampled down.
Looking curiously at this patch they saw a bit
of hide only partially covered at one end; dig-
ging down they found the body of a well-grown
grisly cub. Its skull had been crushed, and the
brains licked out, and there were signs of other
injuries. The hiinters pondered long over this
strange discovery, and hazarded many guesses as
to its meaning. At last they decided that prob-
ably the cub had been killed, and its brains eaten
out, either by some old male grisly or by a cou-
gar, that the mother had returned and driven
away the murderer, and that she had then buried
the body and lain above it, waiting to wreak her
vengeance on the first passer-by.

Old Tazewell Woody, during his thirty years'
life as a himter in the Rockies and on the great
plains, killed very many grislies. He always
exercised much caution in dealing with them;
and, as it happened, he was by some suitable
tree in almost every case when he was charged.
He would accordingly climb the tree (a practice
of which I do not approve, however), and the
bear would look up at him and pass on without
stopping. Once, when he was hunting in the
motmtains with a companion, the latter, who was
down in a valley, while Woody was on the hill-
side, shot at a bear. The first thing Woody
knew the wounded grisly, running up hill, was

Hunting the Grisly 99

almost on him from behind. As he turned it
seized his rifle in its jaws. He wrenched the rifle
roimd, while the bear still gripped it, and pulled
trigger, sending a bullet into its shoulder ; where-
upon it struck him with its paw, and knocked
him over the rocks. By good luck he fell in a
snow bank and was not hurt in the least. Mean-
while, the bear went on and they never got it.

Once he had an experience with a bear which
showed a very curious mixture of rashness and
cowardice. He and a companion were camped in
a little tepee or wigwam, with a bright fire in
front of it, lighting up the night. There was an
inch of snow on the groimd. Just after they
went to bed a grisly came close to camp. Their
dog rushed out and they could hear it bark round
in the darkness for nearly an hour; then the
bear drove it off and came right into camp. It
went close to the fire, picking up the scraps of
meat and bread, pulled a haunch of venison
down from a tree, and passed and repassed in
front of the tepee, paying no heed whatever to
the two men, who crouched in the doorway talk-
ing to one another. Once it passed so close that
Woody could almost have touched it. Finally
his companion fired into it, and off it ran, badly
wounded, without an attempt at retaliation.
Next morning they followed its tracks in the
snow, and found it a quarter of a mile away. It

loo The Wilderness Hunter

was near a pine and had buried itself under the
loose earth, pine-needles, and snow; Woody's
companion almost walked over it, and, putting
his rifle to its ear, blew out its brains.

In all his experience Woody had personally
seen but four men who were badly mauled by
bears. Three of these were merely wounded.
One was bitten terribly in the back. Another
had an arm partially chewed off. The third was
a man named George Dow, and the accident
happened to him on the Yellowstone, about the
year 1878. He was with a pack-animal at the
time, leading it on a trail through a wood. See-
ing a big she -bear with cubs he yelled at her;
whereat she ran away, but only to cache her cubs,
and in a minute, having hidden them, came rac-
ing back at him. His pack-animal being slow, he
started to climb a tree; but before he could get
far enough up she caught him, almost biting a
piece out of the calf of his leg, pulled him down,
bit and cuffed him two or three times, and then
went on her way.

The only time Woody ever saw a man killed by
a bear was once when he had given a touch of
variety to his life by shipping on a New Bedford
whaler which had touched at one of the Puget
Soimd ports. The whaler went up to a part of
Alaska where bears were very plentiful and bold.
One day a couple of boats' crews landed; and

Hunting the Grisly loi

the men, who were armed only with an occasional
harpoon or lance, scattered over the beach, one
of them, a Frenchman, wading into the water
after shell-fish. Suddenly a bear emerged from
some bushes and charged among the astonished
sailors, who scattered in every direction ; but the
bear, said Woody, '* just had it in for that French-
man," and went straight at him. Shrieking with
terror he retreated up to his neck in the water;
but the bear plunged in after him, caught him,
and disembowelled him. One of the Yankee
mates then fired a bomb lance into the bear's
hips, and the savage beast hobbled off into the
dense cover of the low scrub, where the enraged
sailor folk were imable to get at it.

The truth is that while the grisly generally
avoids a battle if possible, and often acts with
great cowardice, it is never safe to take liberties
with him; he usually fights desperately and dies
hard when woimded and cornered, and exceptional
individuals take the aggressive on small provo-
cation.

During the years I lived on the frontier I came
in contact with many persons who had been se-
verely mauled or even crippled for life by grislies ;
and a number of cases where they killed men
outright were also brought under my ken. Gen-
erally, these accidents, as was natural, occurred
to htmters who had roused or woimded the game.

I02 The Wilderness Hunter

A fighting bear sometimes uses his claws and
sometimes his teeth. I have never known one to
attempt to kill an antagonist by hugging, in spite
of the popular belief to this effect; though he
will sometimes draw an enemy towards him with
his paws the better to reach him with his teeth,
and to hold him so that he cannot escape from
the biting. Nor does the bear often advance on
his hind legs to the attack; though, if the man
has come close to him in thick underbrush, or
has stumbled on him in his lair ima wares, he
will often rise up in this fashion and strike a
single blow. He will also rise in clinching with a
man on horseback. In 1882, a mounted Indian
was killed in this manner on one of the river bot-
toms some miles below where my ranch-house
now stands, not far from the junction of the
Beaver and Little Missouri. The bear had been
himted into a thicket by a band of Indians, in
whose company my informant, a white squaw-
man, with whom I afterward did some trading,
was travelling. One of them, in the excitement of
the pursuit, rode across the end of the thicket ; as
he did so the great beast sprang at him with
wonderful quickness, rising on its hind legs and
knocking over the horse and rider with a single
sweep of its terrible fore paws. It then turned on
the fallen man and tore him open, and though the
other Indians came promptly to the rescue and

Hunting the Grisly 103

slew his assailant, they were not in time to save
their comrade's Hfe.

A bear is apt to rely mainly on his teeth or
claws, according to whether his efforts are directed
primarily to killing his foe or to making good his
own escape. In the latter event he trusts chiefly
to his claws. If cornered, he of course makes a
rush for freedom, and in that case he downs any
man who is in his way with a sweep of his great
paw, put passes on without stopping to bite him.
If while sleeping or resting in thick brush some
one suddenly stumbles on him close up he pur-
sues the same course, less from anger than from
fear, being surprised and startled. Moreover, if
attacked at close quarters by men and dogs he
strikes right and left in defence.

Sometimes what is called a charge is rather an
effort to get away. In localities where he has
been himted, a bear, like every other kind of
game, is always on the lookout for an attack, and
is prepared at any moment for immediate flight.
He seems ever to have in his mind, whether feed-
ing, stinning himself, or merely roaming aroimd,
the direction — usually towards the thickest cover
or most broken ground — in which he intends to
run if molested. When shot at he instantly starts
towards this place; or he may be so confused
that he simply rims he knows not whither; and
in either event he may take a line that leads almost

I04 The Wilderness Hunter

directly to or by the hunter, although he had at
first not thought of charging. In such a case he
usually strikes a single knock-down blow and gal-
lops on without halting, though that one blow may
have taken life. If the claws are long and fairly
sharp (as in early spring, or even in the fall, if the
animal has been working over soft ground) they
add immensely to the effect of the blow, for they
cut like blunt axes. Often, however, late in the
season, and if the ground has been dry and hard,
or rocky, the claws are worn down nearly to the
quick, and the blow is then given mainly with the
tmderside of the paw; although even under this
disadvantage a thump from a big bear will down
a horse or smash in a man's breast. The hunter
Hofer once lost a horse in this manner. He shot
at and wounded a bear which rushed off, as ill
luck would have it, past the place where his horse
was picketed; probably more in fright than in
anger, it struck the poor beast a blow which, in
the end, proved mortal.

If a bear means mischief and charges, not to
escape but to do damage, its aim is to grapple
with or throw down its foe and bite him to death.
The charge is made at a gallop, the animal some-
times coming on silently with the mouth shut,
and sometimes with the jaws open, the lips drawn
back and teeth showing, uttering at the same
time a succession of roars or of savage rasping

Hunting the Grisly 105

snarls. Certain bears charge without any bluster
and perfectly straight ; while others first threaten
and bully, and even when charging stop to growl,
shake the head, and bite at a bush or knock holes
in the grotind with their fore paws. Again, some
of them charge home with a ferocious resolution
which their extreme tenacity of life renders es-
pecially dangerous; while others can be turned
or driven back even by a shot which is not mor-
tal. They show the same variability in their
behavior when woimded. Often a big bear, es-
pecially if charging, will receive a bullet in per-
fect silence, without flinching or seeming to pay
any heed to it; while another will cry out and
tumble about, and if charging, even though it
may not abandon the attack, will pause for a
moment to whine or bite at the wound.

Sometimes a single bite causes death. One of
the most successful bear hunters I ever knew, an
old fellow whose real name I never heard as he
was always called Old Ike, was killed in this way
in the spring or early summer of 1886 on one of
the head-waters of the Salmon. He was a very-
good shot, had killed nearly a himdred bears with
the rifle, and, although often charged, had never
met with any accident, so that he had grown some-
what careless. On the day in question he had
met a couple of mining prospectors and was trav-
elling with them, when a grisly crossed his path.

io6 The Wilderness Hunter

The old hunter immediately ran after it, rapidly
gaining, as the bear did not hurry when it saw
itself pursued, but slouched slowly forwards, oc-
casionally turning its head to grin and growl.
It soon went into a dense grove of young spruce,
and as the hunter reached the edge it charged
fiercely out. He fired one hasty shot, evidently
woimding the animal, but not seriously enough
to stop or cripple it; and as his two companions
ran forward they saw the bear seize him with its
wide-spread jaws, forcing him to the groimd.
They shouted and fired, and the beast abandoned
the fallen man on the instant and sullenly re-
treated into the spruce thicket, whither they
dared not follow it. Their friend was at his last
gasp; for the whole side of his chest had been
crushed in by the one bite, the lungs showing be-
tween the rent ribs.

Very often, however, a bear does not kill a man
by one bite, but after throwing him lies on him,
biting him to death. Usually, if no assistance is
at hand, such a man is doomed ; although, if he
pretends to be dead, and has the nerve to lie
quiet under very rough treatment, it is just possi-
ble that the bear may leave him alive, perhaps
after half burying what it believes to be the body.
In a very few exceptional instances, men of ex-
traordinary prowess with the knife have suc-
ceeded in beating off a bear, and even in mortally

Hunting the Grisly 107

wounding it, but in most cases a single-handed
struggle, at close quarters, with a grisly bent on
mischief, means death.

Occasionally, the bear, although vicious, is also
frightened, and passes on after giving one or two
bites; and frequently a man who is knocked
down is rescued by his friends before he is killed,
the big beast mayhap using his weapons with
clumsiness. So a bear may kill a foe with a single
blow of its mighty forearm, either crushing in the
head or chest by sheer force of sinew, or else tear-
ing open the body with its formidable claws ; and
so on the other hand he may, and often does,
merely disfigure or maim the foe by a hurried
stroke. Hence it is common to see men who
have escaped the clutches of a grisly, but only at
the cost of features marred beyond recognition,
or a body rendered almost helpless for life.
Almost every old resident of western Montana or
northern Idaho has known two or three unfortu-
nates who have suffered in this manner. I have
myself met one such man in Helena, and another
in Missoula; both were living at least as late as
1889, the date at which I last saw them. One
had been partially scalped by a bear's teeth ; the
animal was very old, and so the fangs did not
enter the skull. The other had been bitten across
the face, and the wounds never entirely healed,
so that his disfigured visage was hideous to behold.

io8 The Wilderness Hunter

Most of these accidents occur in following a
woiinded or worried bear into thick cover; and
under such circumstances an animal apparently
hopelessly disabled, or in the death throes, may
with a last effort kill one or more of its assailants.
In 1874, my wife's uncle, Captain Alexander
Moore, U. S. A., and my friend Captain Bates,
with some men of the 2d and 3d Cavalry, were
scouting in Wyoming, near the Freezeout Moun-
tains. One morning they roused a bear in the
open prairie and followed it at full speed as it
ran towards a small creek. At one spot in the
creek beavers had built a dam, and, as usual in
such places, there was a thick growth of bushes
and willow saplings. Just as the bear reached
the edge of this little jimgle it was struck by
several balls, both of its fore legs being broken.
Nevertheless it managed to shove itself forward
on its hind legs, and partly rolled, partly pushed
itself into the thicket, the bushes though low be-
ing so dense that its body was at once completely
hidden. The thicket was a mere patch of brush,
not twenty yards across in any direction. The
leading troopers reached the edge almost as the
bear tumbled in. One of them, a tall and power-
ful man named Miller, instantly dismounted and
prepared to force his way in among the dwarfed
willows, which were but breast-high. Among the
men who had ridden up were Moore and Bates,

Hunting the Grisly 109

and also the two famous scouts, Btiffalo Bill —
long a companion of Captain Moore — and Cali-
fornia Joe, Custer's faithful follower. California
Joe had spent almost all his life on the plains and
in the moimtains, as a hunter and Indian fighter ;
and when he saw the trooper about to rush into
the thicket he called out to him not to do so,
warning him of the danger. But the man was a
very reckless fellow and he answered by jeering
at the old himter for his over-caution in being
afraid of a crippled bear. California Joe made no
further effort to dissuade him, remarking quietly :
** Very well, sonny, go in; it 's your own affair,"
Miller then leaped off the bank on which they
stood and strode into the thicket, holding his rifle
at the port. Hardly had he taken three steps
when the bear rose in front of him, roaring with
rage and pain. It was so close that the man had
no chance to fire. Its fore arms hung motionless,
and as it reared unsteadily on its hind legs, lung-
ing forward at him, he seized it by the ears and
strove to hold it back. His strength was very
great, and he actually kept the huge head from
his face and braced himself so that he was not
overthrown ; but the bear twisted its muzzle from
side to side, biting and tearing the man*s arms
and shoulders. Another soldier jumping down
slew the beast with a single bullet, and rescued
his comrade; but though alive he was too badly

no The Wilderness Hunter

hurt to recover and died after reaching the hos-
pital. Buffalo Bill was given the bear-skin, and
I believe has it now.

The instances in which hunters who have rashly
followed grislies into thick cover have been killed
or severely mauled might be multiplied indefi-
nitely. I have myself known of eight cases in
which men have met their deaths in this manner.

It occasionally happens that a cunning old
grisly will lie so close that the hunter almost
steps on him; and he then rises suddenly with
a loud, coughing growl and strikes down or seizes
the man before the latter can fire off his rifle.
More rarely a bear which is both vicious and
crafty deliberately permits the hunter to approach
fairly near to, or perhaps pass by, its hiding-place,
and then suddenly charges him with such rapidity
that he has barely time for the most hurried shot.
The danger in such a case is of course great.

Ordinarily, however, even in the brush, the
bear's object is to slink away, not to fight, and
very many are killed even under the most unfa-
vorable circumstances without accident. If an un-
wounded bear thinks itself unobserved it is not
apt to attack; and in thick cover it is really as-
tonishing to see how one of these large animals
can hide, and how closely it will lie when there is
danger. About twelve miles below my ranch
there are some large river bottoms and creek

Hunting the Grisly 1 1 1

bottoms covered with a matted mass of cotton-
wood, box-alders, bullberry bushes, rosebushes,
ash, wild plums, and other bushes. These bot-
toms have harbored bears ever since I first saw
them; but, though often in company with a large
party, I have repeatedly beaten through them,
and though we must at times have been very
near indeed to the game, we never so much as
heard it run.

When bears are shot, as they usually must be,
in open timber or on the bare mountain, the risk
is very much less. Htmdreds may thus be killed
with comparatively little danger ; yet even imder
these circumstances they will often charge, and
sometimes make their charge good. The spice of
danger, especially to a man armed with a good
repeating rifle, is only enough to add zest to the
chase, and the chief triumph is in outwitting
the wary quarry and getting within range. Ordi-
narily the only excitement is in the stalk, the bear
doing nothing more than to keep a keen lookout
and manifest the utmost anxiety to get away.
As is but natural, accidents occasionally occur;
yet they are usually due more to some failure in
man or weapon than to the prowess of the bear.
A good hunter whom I once knew, at a time when
he was living in Butte, received fatal injuries from
a bear he attacked in open woodland. The beast
charged after the first shot, but slackened its pace

112 The Wilderness Hunter

on coming almost up to the man. The latter's
gun jambed, and as he was endeavoring to work
it he kept stepping slowly back, facing the bear
which followed a few yards distant, snarling and
threatening. Unfortunately, while thus walking
backwards the man struck a dead log and fell
over it, whereupon the beast instantly sprang on
him and mortally wounded him before help ar-
rived.

On rare occasions, men who are not at the time
hunting it, fall victims to the grisly. This is
usually because they stumble on it unawares and
the animal attacks them more in fear than in
anger. One such case, resulting fatally, occurred
near my own ranch. The man walked almost
over a bear while crossing a little point of brush,
in a bend of the river, and was brained with a
single blow of the paw. In another instance
which came to my knowledge, the man escaped
with a shaking up, and without even a fright.
His name was Perkins, and he was out gathering
huckleberries in the woods on a mountain-side
near Pend Oreille Lake. Suddenly he was sent
flying head over heels, by a blow which com-
pletely knocked the breath out of his body ; and
so instantaneous was the whole affair that all
he could ever recollect about it was getting a
vague glimpse of the bear just as he was bowled
over. When he came to he found himself lying

Hunting the Grisly 113

some distance down the hillside, much shaken,
and without his berry-pail, which had rolled a
hundred yards below him, but not otherwise the
worse for his misadventure; while the footprints
showed that the bear, after delivering the single
hurried stroke at the -unwitting disturber of its
day-dreams, had run off up hill as fast as it was
able.

A she-bear with cubs is a proverbially danger-
ous beast ; yet even under such conditions differ-
ent grislies act in directly opposite ways. Some
she-grislies, when their cubs are young, but are
able to follow them about, seem always worked
up to the highest pitch of anxious and jealous
rage, so that they are likely to attack improvoked
any intruder or even passer-by. Others, when
threatened by the hunter, leave their cubs to
their fate without a visible qualm of any kind,
and seem to think only of their own safety.

In 1882, Mr. Caspar W. Whitney, now of New
York, met with a very singular adventure with a
she-bear and cub. He was in Harvard when I
was, but left it and, like a good many other
Harvard men of that time, took to cow-punching
in the West. He went on a ranch in Rio Arriba
County, New Mexico, and was a keen hunter,
especially fond of the chase of cougar, bear, and
elk. One day while riding a stony mountain trail
he saw a little grisly cub watching him from the

VOL. II. — 8.

114 The Wilderness Hunter

chaparral above, and he dismounted to try to
capture it; his rifle was a 40-90 Sharp's. Just
as he neared the cub, he heard a growl and
caught a glimpse of the old she, and he at once
turned up hill, and stood under some tall, quak-
ing aspens. From this spot he fired at and
wounded the she, then seventy yards off; and
she charged furiously. He hit her again, but as
she kept coming like a thunderbolt he climbed
hastily up an aspen, dragging his gun with him,
as it had a strap. When the bear reached the
foot of the aspen she reared, and bit and clawed
the slender trimk, shaking it for a moment, and
he shot her through the eye. Off she sprang for
a few yards, and then spun round a dozen times,
as if dazed or partially stunned ; for the bullet
had not touched the brain. Then the vindictive
and resolute beast came back to the tree and
again reared up against it; this time to receive
a bullet that dropped her lifeless. Mr. Whitney
then climbed down and walked to where the
cub had been sitting as a looker-on. The little
animal did not move until he reached out his
hand; when it suddenly struck at him like an
angry cat, dove into the bushes, and was seen
no more.

In the summer of 1888, an old-time trapper,
named Charley Norton, while on Loon Creek, of
the middle fork of the Salmon, meddled with a she

Hunting the Grisly 115

and her cubs. She ran at him and with one blow
of her paw almost knocked off his lower jaw; yet
he recovered, and was alive when I last heard of
him.

Yet the very next spring the cowboys with my
own wagon on the Little Missouri round-up killed
a mother bear which made but little more fight
than a coyote. She had two cubs, and was sur-
prised in the early morning on the prairie far
from cover. There were eight or ten cowboys
together at the time, just starting off on a long
circle, and of course they all got down their ropes
in a second, and putting spurs to their fiery little
horses started toward the bears at a run, shouting
and swinging their loops roimd their heads. For
a moment the old she tried to bluster and made
a half-hearted threat at charging; but her cour-
age failed before the rapid onslaught of her yell-
ing, rope-swinging assailants; and she took to
her heels and galloped off, leaving the cubs to
shift for themselves. The cowboys were close
behind, however, and after half a mile's run she
bolted into a shallow cave or hole in the side of a
butte, where she stayed cowering and growling,
until one of the men leaped off his horse, ran up
to the edge of the hole, and killed her with a
single bullet from his revolver, fired so close that
the powder burned her hair. The unfortunate
cubs were roped, and then so dragged about that

ii6 The Wilderness Hunter

they were speedily killed instead of being brought
alive to camp, as ought to have been done.

In the cases mentioned above, the grisly at-
tacked only after having been itself assailed, or
because it feared an assault for itself or for its
young. In the old days, however, it may almost
be said that a grisly was more apt to attack than
to flee. Lewis and Clarke and the early explor-
ers who immediately succeeded them, as well as
the first hunters and trappers, the " Rocky Moun-
tain men" of the early decades of the present
century, were repeatedly assailed in this manner;
and not a few of the bear-hunters of that period
found that it was unnecessary to take much
trouble about approaching their quarry, as the
grisly was usually prompt to accept the challenge
and to advance of its own accord, as soon as it dis-
covered the foe. All this is changed now. Yet
even at the present day an occasional vicious old
bear may be found, in some far-off and little-trod
fastness, which still keeps up the former habit of
its kind. All old hunters have tales of this sort
to relate, the prowess, cimning, strength, and
ferocity of the grisly being favorite topics for
camp-fire talk throughout the Rockies ; but in
most cases it is not safe to accept these stories
without careful sifting.

Still, it is just as unsafe to reject them all.
One of my own cowboys was once attacked by

Hunting the Grisly 117

a grisly, seemingly in pure wantonness. He was
riding up a creek bottom, and had just passed a
clump of rose and bullberry bushes when his
horse gave such a leap as almost to unseat him,
and then darted madly forward. Turning round
in the saddle to his utter astonishment he saw a
large bear galloping after him, at the horse's
heels. For a few jumps the race was close, then
the horse drew away and the bear wheeled and
went into a thicket of wild plums. The amazed
and indignant cowboy, as soon as he could rein in
his steed, drew his revolver and rode back to and
around the thicket, endeavoring to provoke his
late pursuer to come out and try conclusions on
more equal terms ; but prudent Ephraim had ap-
parently repented of his freak of ferocious bra-
vado, and declined to leave the secure shelter of
the jungle.

Other attacks are of a much more explicable
nature. Mr. Huffman, the photographer of Miles
City, informed me that once when butchering
some slaughtered elk he was charged twice by a
she-bear and two well-grown cubs. This was a
piece of sheer bullying, undertaken solely with
the purpose of driving away the man and feast-
ing on the carcasses ; for in each charge the three
bears, after advancing with much blustering,
roaring, and growling, halted just before com-
ing to close quarters. In another instance a

ii8 The Wilderness Hunter

gentleman I once knew, a Mr. S. Carr, was
charged by a grisly from mere ill-temper at being
disturbed at meal-time. The man was riding up
a valley; and the bear was at an elk carcass,
near a clump of firs. As soon as it became aware
of the approach of the horseman, while he was
yet over a hundred yards distant, it jumped on
the carcass, looked at him a moment, and then
ran straight for him. There was no particular
reason why it should have charged, for it was fat
and in good trim, though when killed its head
showed scars made by the teeth of rival grislies.
Apparently it had been living so well, principally
on flesh, that it had become quarrelsome; and
perhaps its not over sweet disposition had been
soured by combats with others of its own kind.
In yet another case, a grisly charged with even
less excuse. An old trapper, from whom I oc-
casionally bought fur, was toiling up a mountain
pass when he spied a big bear sitting on his
haunches on the hillside above. The trapper
shouted and waved his cap; whereupon, to his
amazement, the bear uttered a loud "wough"
and charged straight down on him — only to fall
a victim to misplaced boldness.

I am even inclined to think that there have
been wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly
has attacked a man with the deliberate purpose
of making a meal of him; when, in other words,

Hunting the Grisly 119

it has started on the career of a man-eater. i\t
least, on any other theory I find it difficult to ac-
count for an attack which once came to my know-
ledge. I was at Sand Point, on Pend Oreille Lake,
and met some French and Meti trappers, then in
town with their bales of beaver, otter, and sable.
One of them, who gave his name as Baptiste La-
moche, had his head twisted over to one side, the
result of the bite of a bear. When the accident
occurred he was out on a trapping trip with two
companions. They had pitched camp right on
the shore of a cove in a little lake, and his com-
rades were off fishing in a dugout or pirogue. He
himself was sitting near the shore, by a little
lean-to, watching some beaver meat which was
sizzling over the dying embers. Suddenly, and
without warning, a great bear, which had crept
silently up beneath the shadows of the tall ever-
greens, rushed at him, with a guttural roar, and
seized him before he could rise to his' feet. It
grasped him with its jaws at the junction of the
neck and shoulder, making the teeth meet through
bone, sinew, and muscle; and, turning, tracked
off towards the forest, dragging with it the help-
less and paralyzed victim. Luckily, the two men
in the canoe had just paddled round the point, in
sight of, and close to, camp. The man in the
bow, seeing the plight of their comrade, seized
his rifle and fired at the bear. The bullet went

I20 The Wilderness Hunter

through the beast's lungs, and it forthwith
dropped its prey, and running off some two
hiindred yards, lay down on its side and died.
The rescued man recovered full health and
strength, but never again carried his head
straight.

Old hunters and mountain-men tell many
stories, not only of malicious grislies thus at-
tacking men in camp, but also of their even
dogging the footsteps of some solitary hunter
and killing him when the favorable opportunity
occurs. Most of these tales are mere fables ; but
it is possible that in altogether exceptional in-
stances they rest on a foundation of fact. One
old hunter whom I knew told me such a story.
He was a truthful old fellow, and there was no
doubt that he believed what he said, and that
his companion was actually killed by a bear ; but
it is probable that he was mistaken in reading
the signs of his comrade's fate, and that the
latter was not dogged by the bear at all, but
stumbled on him and was slain in the surprise of
the moment.

At any rate, cases of wanton assaults by grislies
are altogether out of the common. The ordinary
hunter may live out his whole life in the wilder-
ness and never know aught of a bear attacking a
man unprovoked ; and the great majority of bears
are shot under circumstances of no special ex-

Hunting the Grisly 121

citement, as they either make no fight at all, or,
if they do fight, are killed before there is any risk
of their doing damage. If surprised on the plains,
at some distance from timber or from badly bro-
ken ground, it is no uncommon teat for a single
horseman to kill them with a revolver. Twice of
late years it has been performed in the neighbor-
hood of my ranch. In both instances the men
were not hunters out after game, but simply cow-
boys, riding over the range in early morning in
pursuance of their ordinary duties among the
cattle. I knew both men and have worked with
them on the round-up. Like most cowboys they
carried 44-calibre Colt revolvers, and were accus-
tomed to and fairly expert in their use, and they
were mounted on ordinary cowrpbnies — quick,
wiry, plucky little beasts. In one case the bear
was seen from quite a distance, lounging across
a broad table-land. The cowboy, by taking ad-
vantage of a winding and rather shallow coulie,
got quite close to him. He then scrambled out
of the coulie, put spurs to his pony, and raced up
to within fifty yards of the astonished bear ere
the latter quite understood what it was that was
running at him through the gray dawn. He
made no attempt at fight, but ran at top speed
towards a clump of brush not far off at the head
of a creek. Before he could reach it, however,
the galloping horseman was alongside, and fired

1-22 The Wilderness Hunter

three shots into his broad back. He did not turn,
but ran on into the bushes and then fell over and
died.

In the other case the cowboy, a Texan, was
mounted on a good cutting pony, a spirited,
handy, agile little animal, but excitable, and
with a habit of dancing, which rendered it diffi-
cult to shoot from its back. The man was with
the round-up wagon, and had been sent off by
himself to make a circle through some low, barren
buttes, where it was thought not more than a
few head of stock would be found. On round-
ing the comer of a small washout he almost ran
over a bear which was feeding on the carcass of
a steer that had died in an alkali hole. After a
moment of stunned surprise the bear hurled him-
self at the intruder with furious impetuosity;
while the cowboy, wheeling his horse on its
haunches and dashing in the spurs, carried it just
clear of his assailant's headlong rush. After a
few springs he reined in and once more wheeled
half round, having drawn his revolver, only to
find the bear again charging and almost on him.
This time he fired into it, near the joining of the
neck and shoulder, the bullet going downwards
into the chest hollow ; and again by a quick dash
to one side he just avoided the rush of the beast
and the sweep of its mighty fore paw. The bear
then halted for a minute, and he rode close by it

Hunting the Grisly 123

at a run, firing a couple of shots, which brought
on another resolute charge. The ground was
somewhat rugged and broken, but his pony was
as quick on its feet as a cat, and never stumbled,
even when going at full speed to avoid the bear's
first mad rushes. It speedily became so excited,
however, as to render it almost impossible for the
rider to take aim. Sometimes he would come up
close to the bear and wait for it to charge, which
it would do, first at a trot, or rather rack, and
then at a lumbering but swift gallop; and he
would fire one or two shots before being forced
to run. At other times, if the bear stood still in
a good place, he would run by it, firing as he
rode. He spent many cartridges and, though
most of them were wasted, occasionally a bullet
went home. The bear fought with the most sav-
age courage, champing its bloody jaws, roaring
with rage, and looking the very incarnation of
evil fury. For some minutes it made no effort
to flee, either charging or standing at bay. Then
it began to move slowly towards a patch of ash
and wild plums in the head of a coulie, some dis-
tance off. Its pursuer rode after it, and when
close enough would push by it and fire, while the
bear would spin quickly round and charge as
fiercely as ever, though evidently beginning to
grow weak. At last, when still a couple of hun-
dred yards from cover, the man found he had

124 The Wilderness Hunter

used up all his cartridges, and then merely fol-
lowed at a safe distance. The bear no longer
paid heed to him, but walked slowly forwards,
swaying its great head from side to side, while
the blood streamed from between its half -opened
jaws. On reaching the cover he could tell by the
waving of the bushes that it walked to the middle
and then halted. A few minutes afterwards some
of the other cowboys rode up, having been at-
tracted by the incessant firing. They surrounded
the thicket, firing and throwing stones into the
bushes. Finally, as nothing moved, they ven-
tured in and found the indomitable grisly warrior
lying dead.

Cowboys delight in nothing so much as the
chance to show their skill as riders and ropers;
and they always try to ride down and rope any
wild animal they come across in favorable ground
and close enough up. If a party of them meets a
bear in the open they have great fun; and the
struggle between the shouting, galloping rough-
riders and their shaggy quarry is full of wild ex-
citement and not imaccompanied by danger. The
bear often throws the noose from his head so rap-
idly that it is a difficult matter to catch him ; and
his frequent charges scatter his tormentors in
every direction while the horses become wild with
fright over the roaring, bristling beast — for horses
seem to dread a bear more than any other animal.

Hunting the Grisly 125

If the bear cannot reach cover, however, his fate
is sealed. Sooner or later, the noose tightens
over one leg, or perchance over the neck and fore
paw, and as the rope straightens with a ''pluck,"
the horse braces itself desperately and the bear
tumbles over. Whether he regains his feet or
not the cowboy keeps the rope taut; soon an-
other noose tightens over a leg, and the bear is
speedily rendered helpless.

I have known of these feats being performed
several times in northern Wyoming, although
never in the immediate neighborhood of my ranch.
Mr. Archibald Rogers's cowhands have in this
manner caught several bears on or near his ranch
on the Gray Bull, which flows into the Bighorn;
and those of Mr. G. B. Grinnell have also occa-
sionally done so. Any set of moderately good
ropers and riders, who are accustomed to back
one another up and act together, can accomplish
the feat if they have smooth ground and plenty
of room. It is, however, indeed a feat of skill
and daring for a single man; and yet I have
known of more than one instance in which it has
been accomplished by some reckless knight of the
rope and the saddle. One such occurred in 1887
on the Flathead Reservation, the hero being a
half-breed, and another in 1890 at the mouth of
the Bighorn, where a cowboy roped, boimd, and
killed a large bear single-handed.

126 The Wilderness Hunter

My friend, General "Red" Jackson, of Belle-
meade, in the pleasant mid-county of Tennessee,
once did a feat which casts into the shade even
the feats of the men of the lariat. General Jack-
son, who afterwards became one of the ablest
and most renowned of the Confederate cavalry
leaders, was at the time a young officer in the
Mounted Rifle Regiment, now known as the 3d
United States Cavalry. It was some years before
the Civil War, and the regiment was on duty in the
Southwest, then the debatable land of Comanche
and Apache. While on a scout after hostile In-
dians, the troops in their march roused a large
grisly which sped off across the plain in front of
them. Strict orders had been issued against fir-
ing at game, because of the nearness of the In-
dians. Young Jackson was a man of great
strength, a keen swordsman, who always kept the
finest edge on his blade, and he was on a swift
and mettled Kentucky horse, which luckily had
but one eye. Riding at full speed he soon over-
took the quarry. As the horse-hoofs sounded
nearer, the grim bear ceased its flight and, whirl-
ing round, stood at bay, raising itself on its hind
legs and threatening its pursuer with bared
fangs and spread claws. Carefully riding his
horse so that its blind side should be towards
the monster, the cavalryman swept by at a run,
handling his steed with such daring skill that he

Hunting the Grisly 127

just cleared the blow of the dreaded fore paw,
while, with one mighty sabre stroke, he cleft the
bear's skull, slaying the grinning beast as it stood
upright.

CHAPTER V

THE COUGAR

NO animal of the chase is so difficult to kill
by fair still-hunting as the cougar — that
beast of many names, known in the East
as panther and painter, in the West as moimtain
lion, in the Southwest as Mexican lion, and in the
southern continent as lion and puma.

Without hounds its pursuit is so uncertain that
from the still-hunter's standpoint it hardly de-
serves to rank as game at all — though, by the
way, it is itself a more skilful still-hunter than
any human rival. It prefers to move abroad by
night or at dusk; and in the daytime usually
lies hid in some cave or tangled thicket where it
is absolutely impossible even to stumble on it by
chance. It is a beast of stealth and rapine; its
great, velvet paws never make a sound, and it is
always on the watch whether for prey or for
enemies, while it rarely leaves shelter even when
it thinks itself safe. Its soft, leisurely movements
and uniformity of color make it difficult to dis-
cover at best, and its extreme watchfulness helps
it ; but it is the cougar's reluctance to leave cover

128

The Cougar 129

at any time, its habit of slinking off through
the brush, instead of running in the open, when
startled, and the way in which it lies motionless
in its lair even when a man is within twenty
yards, that render it so difficult to still-hunt.

In fact, it is next to impossible with any hope
of success regularly to himt the cougar without
dogs or bait. Most cougars that are killed by
still-himters are shot by accident while the man
is after other game. This has been my own ex-
perience. Although not common, cougars are
found near my ranch, where the ground is pecu-
liarly favorable for the solitary rifleman; and for
ten years I have, off and on, devoted a day or
two to their pursuit ; but never successfully. One
December a large cougar took up his abode on a
densely wooded bottom two miles above the
ranch-house. I did not discover his existence im-
til I went there one evening to kill a deer, and
found that he had driven all the deer off the bot-
tom, having killed several, as well as a young
heifer. Snow was falling at the time, but the
storm was evidently almost over ; the leaves were
all off the trees and bushes ; and I felt that next
day there would be such a chance to follow the
cougar as fate rarely offered. In the morning by
dawn I was at the bottom, and speedily found
his trail. Following it, I came across his bed,
among some cedars in a dark, steep gorge, where

VOL. H.— g.

I30 The Wilderness Hunter

the buttes bordered the bottom. He had evi-
dently just left it, and I followed his tracks all
day. But I never caught a glimpse of him, and
late in the afternoon I trudged wearily home-
wards. When I went out next morning I found
that, as soon as I abandoned the chase, my quarry,
according to the uncanny habit sometimes dis-
played by his kind, coolly turned likewise, and
deliberately dogged my footsteps to within a
mile of the ranch-house; his round footprints
being as clear as writing in the snow.

This was the best chance of the kind that I
ever had ; but again and again I have found fresh
signs of cougar, such as a lair which they had
just left, game they had killed, or one of our
venison caches which they had robbed, and have
hunted for them all day without success. My
failures were doubtless due, in part, to various
shortcomings in hunter' s-craft on my own part;
but equally without doubt they were mainly due
to the quarry's wariness and its sneaking ways.

I have seen a wild cougar alive but twice, and
both times by chance. On one occasion one of
my men, Merrifield, and I surprised one eating a
skunk in a bullberry patch; and by our own
bungling frightened it away from its unsavory
repast without getting a shot.

On the other occasion luck befriended me. I
was with a pack-train in the Rockies, and one

The Cougar 131

day, feeling lazy, and as we had no meat in camp,
I determined to try for deer by lying in wait be-
side a recently travelled game trail. The spot I
chose was a steep, pine-clad slope leading down
to a little moimtain lake. I hid behind a breast-
work of rotten logs, with a few yoimg evergreens
in front — an excellent ambush. A broad game
trail slanted down the hill directly past me. I
lay perfectly quiet for about an hour, listening to
the murmur of the pine forests, and the occa-
sional call of a jay or woodpecker, and gazing
eagerly along the trail in the waning light of
the late afternoon. Suddenly, without noise or
warning of any kind, a cougar stood in the trail
before me. The unlooked-for and unheralded ap-
proach of the beast was fairly ghost-like. With
its head lower than its shoulders, and its long
tail twitching, it slouched down the path, tread-
ing as softly as a kitten. I waited until it had
passed and then fired into the short ribs, the
bullet ranging forward. Throwing its tail up in
the air, and giving a boimd, the cougar galloped
off over a slight ridge. But it did not go far;
within a himdred yards I found it stretched on
its side, its jaws still working convulsively.

The true way to hunt the cougar is to follow it
with dogs. If the chase is conducted in this
fashion, it is very exciting, and resembles on a
larger scale the ordinary method of hunting the

132 The Wilderness Hunter

wildcat or small lynx, as practised by the sport-
loving planters of the Southern States. With a
very little training, hounds readily and eagerly
pursue the cougar, showing in this kind of chase
none of the fear and disgust they are so prone
to exhibit when put on the trail of the certainly
no more dangerous wolf. The cougar, when the
hounds are on its track, at first runs, but when
hard pressed takes to a tree, or possibly comes to
bay in thick cover. Its attention is then so taken
up with the hotinds that it can usually be ap-
proached and shot without much difficulty;
though some cougars break bay when the hunters
come near, and again make off, when they can
only be stopped by many large and fierce hounds.
Hounds are often killed in these fights; and if
hungry a cougar will pounce on any dog for food ;
yet, as I have elsewhere related, I know of one
instance in which a small pack of big, savage
hounds killed a cougar unassisted. General Wade
Hampton, who with horse and hound has been
the mightiest hunter America has ever seen, in-
forms me that he has killed with his pack some
sixteen cougars, during the fifty years he has
hunted in South Carolina and Mississippi. I be-
lieve they were all killed in the latter State.
General Hampton's hunting has been chiefly for
bear and deer, though his pack also follows the
lynx and the gray fox; and, of course, if good

The Cougar 133

fortune throws either a wolf or a cougar in his
way it is followed as the game of all others. All
the cougars he killed were either treed or brought
to bay in a canebrake by the hounds; and they
often handled the pack very roughly in the death
struggle. He found them much more dangerous
antagonists than the black bear when assailed
with the himting-knife, a weapon of which he
was very fond. However, if his pack had held
a few very large, savage dogs, put in purely for
fighting when the quarry was at bay, I think the
danger would have been minimized.

General Hampton followed his game on horse-
back ; but in following the cougar with dogs this
is by no means always necessary. Thus Colonel
Cecil Clay, of Washington, killed a cougar in West
Virginia, on foot with only three or four hounds.
The dogs took the cold trail, and he had to run
many miles over the rough, forest-clad mountains
after them. Finally, they drove the cougar up a
tree; where he found it, standing among the
branches, in a half -erect position, its hind feet on
one limb and its fore feet on another, while it
glared down at the dogs, and switched its tail
from side to side. He shot it through both
shoulders and down it came in a heap, where-
upon the dogs jumped in and worried it, for its
fore legs were useless, though it managed to catch
one dog in its jaws and bite him severely.

134 The Wilderness Hunter

A wholly exceptional instance of the kind was
related to me by my old himting friend, Willis.
In his youth, in southwest Missouri, he knew a
half-witted ''poor white" who was very fond of
hunting coons. He himted at night, armed with
an axe and accompanied by his dog Penny, a
large, savage, half -starved cur. One dark night
the dog treed an animal which he could not see;
so he cut down the tree, and immediately Penny
jumped in and grabbed the beast. The man
simg out ** Hold on, Penny," seeing that the dog
had seized some large, wild animal; the next
moment the brute knocked the dog endways, and
at the same instant the man split open its head
with the axe. Great was his astonishment, and
greater still the astonishment of the neighbors
next day when it was f otmd that he had actually
killed a cougar. These great cats often take to
trees in a perfectly foolish manner. My friend,
the hunter Woody, in all his thirty years' expe-
rience in the wilds, never killed but one cougar.
He was lying out in camp with two dogs at the
time; it was about midnight, the fire was out,
and the night was pitch-black. He was roused
by the furious barking of his two dogs, which had
charged into the gloom, and were apparently
baying at something in a tree close by. He
kindled the fire, and to his astonishment found
the thing in the tree to be a cougar. Coming

The Cougar 135

close underneath he shot it with his revolver;
thereupon it leaped down, ran some forty yards,
and climbed up another tree, where it died among
the branches.

If cowboys come across a cougar in open
ground they invariably chase and try to rope it
— as indeed they do with any wild animal. I
have known several instances of cougars being
roped in this way ; in one, the animal was brought
into camp by two strapping cow-punchers.

The cougar sometimes stalks its prey, and some-
times lies in wait for it beside a game trail or
drinking-pool — very rarely indeed does it crouch
on the limb of a tree. When excited by the
presence of game it is sometimes very bold.
Willis once fired at some bighorn sheep, on a
steep moimtain-side ; he missed, and immediately
after his shot, a cougar made a dash into the
midst of the flying band, in hopes to secure a
victim. The cougar roams over long distances,
and often changes its hunting-ground, perhaps
remaining in one place two or three months, until
the game is exhausted, and then shifting to an-
other. When it does not lie in wait it usually
spends most of the night, winter and summer, in
prowling restlessly aroimd the places where it
thinks it may come across prey, and it will pa-
tiently follow an animal's trail. There is no
kind of game, save the full-grown grisly and

136 The Wilderness Hunter

biiffalo, which it does not at times assail and
master. It readily snaps up grisly cubs or buf-
falo calves; and in at least one instance I have
known of it springing on, slaying, and eating a
full-grown wolf. I presume the latter was taken
by surprise. On the other hand, the cougar itself
has to fear the big timber wolves when mad-
dened by the winter htmger and gathered in small
parties; while a large grisly would of course be
an overmatch for it twice over, though its supe-
rior agility puts it beyond the grisly' s power to
harm it, imless by some unlucky chance taken in
a cave. Nor could a cougar overcome a bull
moose, or a bull elk either, if the latter' s horns
were grown, save by taking it unawares. By
choice, with such big game, its victims are the
cows and young. The pronghom rarely comes
within reach of its spring; but it is the dreaded
enemy of bighorn, white-goat, and every kind
of deer, while it also preys on all the smaller
beasts, such as foxes, coons, rabbits, beavers, and
even gophers, rats, and mice. It sometimes
makes a thorny meal of the porcupine, and if
sufficiently hungry attacks and eats its smaller
cousin, the lynx. It is not a brave animal; nor
does it run its prey down in open chase. It
always makes its attacks by stealth, and, if pos-
sible, from behind, and relies on two or three
tremendous springs to bring it on the doomed

The Cougar 137

creature's back. It uses its claws as well as its
teeth in holding and killing the prey. If possible
it always seizes a large animal by the throat,
whereas the wolf's point of attack is more often
the haunch or flank. Small deer or sheep it will
often knock over and kill, merely using its big
paws; sometimes it breaks their necks. It has
a small head compared to the jaguar, and its
bite is much less dangerous. Hence, as com-
pared to its larger and bolder relative, it places
more trust in its claws and less in its teeth.

Though the cougar prefers woodland, it is not
necessarily a beast of the dense forests only ; for
it is fotind in all the plains coiintry, living in the
scanty timber belts which fringe the streams, or
among the patches of brush in the Bad Lands.
The persecution of hunters, however, always tends
to drive it into the most thickly wooded and
broken fastnesses of the mountains. The she
has from one to three kittens, brought forth in a
cave or a secluded lair, under a dead log, or in
very thick brush. It is said that the old hes
kill the small male kittens when they get a
chance. They certainly at times during the
breeding season fight desperately among them-
selves. Cougars are very solitary beasts; it is
rare to see more than one at a time, and then
only a mother and yotmg, or a mated male and
female. While she has kittens, the mother is

138 The Wilderness Hunter

doubly destructive to game. The young begin
to kill for themselves very early. The first fall
after they are bom they attack large game, and
from ignorance are bolder in making their at-
tacks than their parents; but they are clumsy
and often let the prey escape. Like all cats,
cougars are comparatively easy to trap, much
more so than beasts of the dog kind, such as the
fox and wolf.

They are silent animals; but old hunters say
that at mating time the males call loudly, while
the females have a very distinct answer. They
are also sometimes noisy at other seasons. I am
not sure that I ever heard one; but one night,
while camped in a heavily timbered coulie near
Kildeer Mountains, where, as their footprints
showed, the beasts were plentiful, I twice heard
a loud, wailing scream ringing through the im-
penetrable gloom which shrouded the hills around
us. My companion, an old plainsman, said that
this was the cry of the cougar prowling for its
prey. Certainly no man could well listen to a
stranger and wilder sound.

Ordinarily, the rifleman is in no danger from a
himted cougar; the beast's one idea seems to be
flight, and even if its assailant is very close, it
rarely charges if there is any chance for escape.
Yet there are occasions when it will show fight.
In the spring of 1890, a man with whom I had

The Cougar 139

more than once worked on the round-up — though
I never knew his name — was badly mauled by a
cougar near my ranch. He was hunting with a
companion and they imexpectedly came on the
cougar on a shelf of sandstone above their heads,
only some ten feet off. It sprang down on the
man, mangled him with teeth and claws for a
moment, and then ran away. Another man I
knew, a hunter named Ed. Smith, who had a
small ranch near Helena, was once charged by a
woimded cougar; he received a couple of deep
scratches, but was not seriously hurt.

Many old frontiersmen tell tales of the cougar's
occasionally itself making the attack, and dogging
to his death some unfortimate wayfarer. Many
others laugh such tales to scorn. It is certain that
if such attacks occur they are altogether excep-
tional, being indeed of such extreme rarity that
they may be entirely disregarded in practice. I
should have no more hesitation in sleeping out
in a wood where there were cougars, or walking
through it after nightfall, than I should have if
the cougars were tomcats.

Yet it is foolish to deny that in exceptional
instances attacks may occur. Cougars vary won-
derfully in size, and no less in temper. Indeed,
I think that by nature they are as ferocious and
bloodthirsty as they are cowardly ; and that their
habit of sometimes dogging wayfarers for miles is

HO The Wilderness Hunter

due to a desire for bloodshed which they lack the
courage to realize. In the old days, when all
wild beasts were less shy than at present, there
was more danger from the cougar; and this was
especially true in the dark canebrakes of some of
the Southern States, where the man a cougar was
most likely to encounter was a nearly naked and
unarmed negro. General Hampton tells me that
near his Mississippi plantation, many years ago,
a negro who was one of a gang engaged in build-
ing a railroad through low and wet ground was
waylaid and killed by a cougar late one night as
he was walking alone through the swamp.

I knew two men in Missoula who were once at-
tacked by cougars in a very curious manner. It
was in January, and they were walking home
through the snow after a hunt, each carrying on
his back the saddle, haunches, and hide of a deer
he had slain. Just at dusk, as they were passing
through a narrow ravine, the man in front heard
his partner utter a sudden loud call for help.
Turning, he was dumbfounded to see the man
lying on his face in the snow, with a cougar which
had evidently just knocked him down standing
over him, grasping the deer meat ; while another
cougar was galloping up to assist. Swinging his
rifle round he shot the first one in the brain, and
it dropped motionless, whereat the second halted,
wheeled, and bounded into the woods. His com-

The Cougar 141

panion was not in the least hurt or even fright-
ened, though greatly amazed. The cougars were
not full grown, but young of the year.

Now in this case I do not believe the beasts
had any real intention of attacking the men.
They were young animals — bold, stupid, and very
hungry. The smell of the raw meat excited them
beyond control, and they probably could not
make out clearly what the men were, as they
walked bent under their burdens, with the deer-
skins on their backs. Evidently the cougars were
only trying to get at the venison.

In 1886, a cougar killed an Indian near Flat-
head Lake. Two Indians were htmting together
on horseback when they came on the cougar. It
fell at once to their shots, and they dismounted
and ran towards it. Just as they reached it it
came to, and seized one, killing him instantly
with a couple of savage bites in the throat and
chest; it then raced after the other, and, as he
sprung on his horse, struck him across the but-
tocks, inflicting a deep but not dangerous scratch.
I saw this survivor a year later. He evinced
great reluctance to talk of the event, and insisted
that the thing w^hich had slain his companion
was not really a cougar at all, but a devil.

A she-cougar does not often attempt to avenge
the loss of her young, but sometimes she does.
A remarkable instance of the kind happened to my

142 The Wilderness Hunter

friend, Professor John Bache McMaster, in 1875.
He was camped near the head of Green River,
Wyoming. One afternoon he foimd a couple of
cougar kittens, and took them into camp; they
were clumsy, playful, friendly little creatures.
The next afternoon he remained in camp with
the cook. Happening to look up he suddenly
spied the mother cougar running noiselessly down
on them, her eyes glaring and tail twitching.
Snatching up his rifle, he killed her when she was
barely twenty yards distant.

A ranchman, named Trescott, who was at one
time my neighbor, told me that while he was
living on a sheep-farm in the Argentine, he found
pumas very common, and killed many. They
were very destructive to sheep and colts, but
were singularly cowardly when dealing with men.
Not only did they never attack human beings, un-
der any stress of hunger, but they made no effec-
tive resistance when brought to bay, merely
scratching and cuffing like a big cat; so that if
found in a cave, it was safe to creep in and shoot
them with a revolver. Jaguars, on the contrary,
were very dangerous antagonists.

CHAPTER VI

A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES

IN the United States the peccary is only found
in the southernmost comer of Texas. In
April, 1892, I made a flying visit to the ranch
country of this region, starting from the town of
Uvalde with a Texan friend, Mr. John Moore.
My trip being hurried, I had but a couple of days
to devote to hunting.

Our first halting-place was at a ranch on the
Frio — a low, wooden building, of many rooms,
with open galleries between them, and verandahs
round about. The country was in some respects
like, in others strangely unlike, the northern
plains with which I was so well acquainted. It
was for the most part covered with a scattered
growth of tough, stunted mesquite-trees, not
dense enough to be called a forest, and yet suf-
ficiently close to cut off the view. It was very-
dry, even as compared with the northern plains.
The bed of the Frio was filled with coarse gravel,
and for the most part dry as a bone on the sur-
face, the water seeping through underneath, and
only appearing in occasional deep holes. These

143

144 The Wilderness Hunter

deep holes or ponds never fail, even after a year*s
drouth; they were filled with fish. One lay
quite near the ranch-house, under a bold rocky
bluff ; at its edge grew giant cypress-trees. In the
hollows and by the watercourses were occasional
groves of pecans, live-oaks, and elms. Strange
birds hopped among the bushes; the chaparral
cock — a big, handsome groimd-cuckoo of re-
markable habits, much given to preying on small
snakes and lizards — ran over the ground with ex-
traordinary rapidity. Beautiful swallow-tailed
king-birds with rosy plumage perched on the tops
of the small trees, and soared and flitted in grace-
ful curves above them. Blackbirds of many kinds
scuttled in flocks about the corrals and outbuild-
ings around the ranches. Mocking-birds abounded
and were very noisy, singing almost all the day-
time, but with their usual irritating inequality of
performance, wonderfully musical and powerful
snatches of song being interspersed with imitations
of other bird notes and disagreeable squalling.
Throughout the trip I did not hear one of them
utter the beautiful love-song in which they some-
times indulge at night.

The coimtry was all under wire fence, unlike
the northern regions, the pastures, however, being
sometimes many miles across. When we reached
the Frio ranch a herd of a thousand cattle had
just been gathered, and two or three himdred

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 145

beeves and young stock were being cut out to be
driven northward over the trail. The cattle were
worked in pens much more than in the North,
and on all the ranches there were chutes with
steering gates, by means of which the individuals
of a herd could be dexterously shifted into va-
rious corrals. The branding of the calves was
done ordinarily in one of these corrals and on
foot, the calf being always roped by both fore
legs; otherwise the work of the cow-punchers
was much like that of their brothers in the North.
As a whole, however, they were distinctly more
proficient with the rope, and at least half of them
were Mexicans.

There were some bands of wild cattle, living
only in the densest timber of the river bottoms
which were literally as wild as deer, and more-
over very fierce and dangerous. The pursuit of
these was exciting and hazardous in the extreme.
The men who took part in it showed not only the
utmost daring but the most consummate horse-
manship and wonderful skill in the use of the
rope, the coil being hurled with the force and
precision of an iron quoit; a single man speedily
overtaking, roping, throwing, and binding down
the fiercest steer or bull.

There had been many peccaries, or, as the Mex-
icans and cow-punchers of the border usually call
them, javalinas, round this ranch a few years

VOL. II. — 10.

146 The Wilderness Hunter

before the date of my visit. Until 1886, or
thereabouts, these little wild hogs were not much
molested, and aboimded in the dense chaparral
around the lower Rio Grande. In that year,
however, it was suddenly discovered that their
hides had a market value, being worth four bits
—that is, half a dollar — apiece; and many Mex-
icans and not a few shiftless Texans went into
the business of hunting them as a means of liveli-
hood. They were more easily killed than deer,
and, as a result, they were speedily exterminated
in many localities where they had formerly been
numerous, and even where they were left were to
be found only in greatly diminished numbers.
On this particular Frio ranch the last little band
had been killed nearly a year before. There were
three of them, a boar and two sows, and a couple
of the cowboys stumbled on them early one morn-
ing while out with a dog. After half a mile's
chase the three peccaries ran into a hollow pecan-
tree, and one of the cowboys, dismounting, im-
provised a lance by tying his knife to the end of
a pole, and killed them all.

Many anecdotes were related to me of what
they had done in the old days when they were
plentiful on the ranch. They were then usually
found in parties of from twenty to thirty, feeding
in the dense chaparral, the sows rejoining the
herd with the young very soon after the birth of

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 147

the latter, each sow usually having but one or
two at a litter. At night they sometimes lay in
the thickest cover, but always, where possible,
preferred to house in a cave or big hollow log, one
invariably remaining as a sentinel close to the
mouth, looking out. If this sentinel were shot,
another would almost certainly take his place.
They were subject to freaks of stupidity, and
were pugnacious to a degree. Not only would
they fight if molested, but they would often at-
tack entirely without provocation.

Once my friend Moore himself, while out with
another cowboy on horseback, was attacked in
sheer wantonness by a drove of these little wild
hogs. The two men were riding by a drove of
live-oaks along a wood-cutter's cart-track, and
were assailed without a moment's warning. The
little creatures completely surrounded them, cut-
ting fiercely at the horses' legs and jumping up
at the riders' feet. The men, drawing their re-
volvers, dashed through and were closely followed
by their pursuers for three or four hundred yards,
although they fired right and left with good effect.
Both of the horses were badly cut. On another
occasion the bookkeeper of the ranch walked off
to a water-hole but a quarter of a mile distant,
and came face to face with a peccary on a cattle
trail, where the brush was thick. Instead of
getting out of his way the creature charged him

148 The Wilderness Hunter

instantly, drove him up a small mesquite-tree,
and kept him there for nearly two hours, looking
up at him and champing its tusks.

I spent two days hunting round this ranch but
saw no peccary sign whatever, although deer were
quite plentiful. Parties of wild geese and sand-
hill cranes occasionally flew overhead. At night-
fall the poor- wills wailed everywhere through the
woods, and coyotes yelped and yelled, while in
the early morning the wild turkeys gobbled
loudly from their roosts in the tops of the pecan-
trees.

Having satisfied myself that there were no java-
linas left on the Frio ranch, and being nearly at
the end of my holiday, I was about to abandon
the effort to get any, when a passing cowman hap-
pened to mention the fact that some were still
to be found on the Nueces River thirty miles or
thereabouts to the southward. Thither I deter-
mined to go, and next morning Moore and I
started in a buggy drawn by a redoubtable horse,
named Jim Swinger, which we were allowed to
use because he bucked so under the saddle that
nobody on the ranch could ride him. We drove
six or seven hours across the dry, waterless plains.
There had been a heavy frost a few days before,
which had blackened the budding mesquite-trees,
and their twigs still showed no signs of sprouting.
Occasionally we came across open spaces where

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 149

there was nothing but short brown grass. In
most places, however, the leafless, sprawling mes-
quites were scattered rather thinly over the
ground, cutting off an extensive view and merely
adding to the melancholy barrenness of the land-
scape. The road was nothing but a couple of
dusty wheel-tracks ; the grovind was parched, and
the grass cropped close by the gaunt, starved
cattle. As we drove along buzzards and great
hawks occasionally soared overhead. Now and
then we passed lines of wild-looking, long-homed
steers, and once we came on the grazing horses
of a cow-outfit, just preparing to start northward
over the trail to the fattening pastures. Occa-
sionally we encountered one or two cow-punchers :
either Texans, habited exactly like their brethren
in the North, with broad-brimmed gray hats,
blue shirts, silk neckerchiefs, and leather leggings,
or else Mexicans, more gaudily dressed, and wear-
ing peculiarly stiff, very broad-brimmed hats,
with conical tops.

Toward the end of our ride we got where the
ground was more fertile, and there had recently
been a sprinkling of rain. Here we came across
wonderful flower prairies. In one spot I kept
catching glimpses through the mesquite-trees of
lilac stretches which I had first thought must be
ponds of water. On coming nearer they proved
to be acres on acres thickly covered with beautiful

I50 The Wilderness Hunter

lilac-colored flowers. Farther on we came to
where broad bands of red flowers covered the
ground for many furlongs; then their places were
taken by yellow blossoms, elsewhere by white.
Generally, each band or patch of ground was cov-
ered densely by flowers of the same color, making
a great vivid streak across the landscape ; but in
places they were mixed together, red, yellow, and
purple, interspersed in patches and curving bands,
carpeting the prairie in a strange, bright pattern.

Finally, toward evening we reached the Nueces.
Where we struck it first the bed was dry, except
in occasional deep, malarial-looking pools, but a
short distance below there began to be a running
current. Great blue herons were stalking beside
these pools, and from one we flushed a white ibis.
In the woods were reddish cardinal birds — much
less brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals
and the scarlet tanagers — and yellow-headed tit-
mice, which had already built large domed nests.

In the valley of the Nueces itself, the brush
grew thick. There were great groves of pecan-
trees, and evergreen live-oaks stood in many
places, long, wind-shaken tufts of gray moss
hanging from their limbs. Many of the trees in
the wet spots were of giant size, and the whole
landscape was semi-tropical in character. High
on a bluff shoulder overlooking the course of the
river was perched the ranch-house, toward which

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 151

we were bending our steps; and here we were
received with the hearty hospitality characteris-
tic of the ranch coiintry everywhere.

The son of the ranchman, a tall, well-built
young fellow, told me at once that there were
peccaries in the neighborhood, and that he had
himself shot one but two or three days before,
and volunteered to lend us horses and pilot us
to the game on the morrow, with the help of his
two dogs. The last were big black curs with, as
we were assured, ''considerable hound" in them.
One was at the time staying at the ranch-house,
the other was four or five miles off with a Mexican
goat-herder, and it was arranged that early in
the morning we should ride down to the latter
place, taking the first dog with us and procuring
his companion when we reached the goat -herder's
house.

We started after breakfast, riding powerful
cow-ponies, well trained to gallop at full speed
through the dense chaparral. The big black
hound slouched at our heels. We rode down the
banks of the Nueces, crossing and recrossing the
stream. Here and there were long, deep pools, in
the bed of the river, where rushes and lilies grew
and huge mailed garfish swam slowly just beneath
the surface of the water. Once my companions
stopped to pull a mired cow out of a slough,
hauling with ropes from their saddle-horns.

152 The Wilderness Hunter

In places there were half -dry pools, out of the
regular current of the river, the water green
and fetid. The trees were very tall and large.
The streamers of pale gray moss hung thickly
from the branches of the live-oaks, and when
many trees thus draped stood close together they
bore a strangely mournful and desolate look.

We finally found the queer little hut of the
Mexican goat-herder in the midst of a grove of
giant pecans. On the walls were nailed the skins
of different beasts — raccoons, wildcats, and the
tree-civet, with its ringed tail. The Mexican's
brown wife and children were in the hut, but
the man himself and the goats were off in the
forest, and it took us three or four hours' search
before we found him. Then it was nearly noon,
and we lunched in his hut, a square building of
split logs, with bare earth floor, and roof of clap-
boards and bark. Our lunch consisted of goat's
meat and pan de mats. The Mexican, a broad-
chested man with a stolid Indian face, was evi-
dently quite a sportsman, and had two or three
half-starved hounds, besides the funny, hairless
little house dogs, of which Mexicans seem so fond.

Having borrowed the javalina hound of which
we were in search, we rode off in quest of our game,
the two dogs trotting gayly ahead. The one which
had been living at the ranch had evidently fared
well, and was very fat; the other was little else

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 153

but skin and bone, but as alert and knowing as
any New York street-boy, with the same air of
disreputable capacity. It was this hound which
always did most in finding the javalinas and
bringing them to bay, his companion's chief use
being to make a noise and lend the moral sup-
port of his presence.

We rode away from the river on the dry up-
lands, where the timber, though thick, was small,
consisting almost exclusively of the thorny mes-
quites. Mixed among them were prickly pears,
standing as high as our heads on horseback, and
Spanish bayonets, looking in the distance like
small palms ; and there were many other kinds of
cactus, all with poisonous thorns. Two or three
times the dogs got on an old trail and rushed off
giving tongue, whereat we galloped madly after
them, ducking and dodging through and among
the clusters of spine -bearing trees and cactus, not
without getting a considerable number of thorns
in our hands and legs. It was very dry and hot.
Where the javalinas live in droves in the river
bottoms they often drink at the pools ; but when
some distance from water they seem to live quite
comfortably on the prickly pear, slaking their
thirst by eating its hard, juicy fibre.

At last, after several false alarms, and gallops
which led to nothing, when it lacked but an hour
of sundown we struck a band of five of the little

154 The Wilderness Hunter

wild hogs. They were running off through the
mesquites with a peculiar hopping or bounding
motion, and we all, dogs and men, tore after
them instantly.

Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred yards,
but speedily tire, lose their wind, and come to bay.
Almost immediately one of these, a sow, as it
turned out, wheeled and charged at Moore as he
passed, Moore never seeing her but keeping on
after another. The sow then stopped and stood
still, chattering her teeth savagely, and I jumped
off my horse and dropped her dead with a shot in
the spine, over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile
had dashed off after his pig in one direction, and
killed the little beast with a shot from the saddle
when it had come to bay, turning and going
straight at him. Two of the peccaries got off;
the remaining one, a rather large boar, was fol-
lowed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had killed
the sow I leaped again on my horse and made
after them, guided by the yelping and baying.
In less than a quarter of a mile they were on his
haunches, and he wheeled and stood under a
bush, charging at them when they came near
him, and once catching one, inflicting an ugly
cut. All the while his teeth kept going like cas-
tanets, with a rapid champing sound. I ran up
close and killed him by a shot through the back-
bone where it joined the neck. His tusks were fine.

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 155

The few minutes' chase on horseback was great
fun, and there was a certain excitement in seeing
the fierce Httle creatures come to bay; but the
true way to kill these peccaries would be with the
spear. They could often be speared on horse-
back, and where this was impossible, by using
dogs to bring them to bay, they could readily be
killed on foot; though, as they are very active,
absolutely fearless, and inflict a most formidable
bite, it would usually be safest to have two men
go at one together. Peccaries are not difficult
beasts to kill, because their short wind and their
pugnacity make them come to bay before hounds
so quickly. Two or three good dogs can bring to
a halt a herd of considerable size. They then all
stand in a bunch, or else with their sterns against
a bank, chattering their teeth at their antago-
nists. When angry and at bay, they get their
legs close together, their shoulders high, and their
bristles all ruffled and look the very incarnation
of anger, and they fight with reckless indifference
to the very last. Hunters usually treat them
with a certain amount of caution; but, as a
matter of fact, I know of but one case where a
man was hurt by them. He had shot at and
wounded one, was charged by both it and by its
two companions, and started to climb a tree ; but
as he drew himself from the ground, one sprang
at him and bit him through the calf, inflicting a

156 The Wilderness Hunter

very severe wound. I have known of several
cases of horses being cut, however, and dogs are
very commonly killed. Indeed, a dog new to the
business is almost certain to get very badly
scarred, and no dog that hunts steadily can es-
cape without some injury. If it runs in right at
the heads of the animals, the probabilities are that
it will get killed; and, as a rule, even two good-
sized hounds cannot kill a peccary, though it is
no larger than either of them. However, a wary,
resolute, hard-biting dog of good size speedily gets
accustomed to the chase, and can kill a peccary
single-handed, seizing it from behind and worrying
it to death, or watching its chance and grabbing
it by the back of the neck where it joins the head.
Peccaries have delicately moulded short legs,
and their feet are small, the tracks looking pecu-
liarly dainty in consequence. Hence, they do
not swim well, though they take to the water if
necessary. They feed on roots, prickly pears,
nuts, insects, lizards, etc. They usually keep en-
tirely separate from the droves of half -wild swine
that are so often found in the same neighborhoods ;
but in one case, on this very ranch where I was
staying, a peccary deliberately joined a party of
nine pigs and associated with them. When the
owner of the pigs came up to them one day the
peccary manifested great suspicion at his pres-
ence, and finally sidled close up and threatened to

A Peccary Hunt on the Nueces 157

attack him, so that he had to shoot it. The
ranchman's son told me that he had never but
once had a peccary assail him unprovoked, and
even in this case it was his dog that was the
object of attack, the peccary rushing out at it as
it followed him home one evening through the
chaparral. Even aroimd this ranch the peccaries
had very greatly decreased in numbers, and the
survivors were learning some caution. In the
old days it had been no uncommon thing for a
big band to attack entirely of their own accord,
and keep a hunter up a tree for hours at a time.

CHAPTER VII

HUNTING WITH HOUNDS

IN hunting American big game with hoimds
several entirely distinct methods are pur-
sued. The true wilderness hunters, the men
who in the early days lived alone in, or moved in
parties through, the Indian -hatinted solitudes,
like their successors of to-day, rarely made use
of a pack of hounds, and, as a rule, did not use
dogs at all. In the eastern forests occasionally
an old-time hunter would own one or two track-
hoimds, slow, with a good nose, intelligent and
obedient, of use mainly in following wounded
game. Some Rocky Mountain hunters nowadays
employ the same kind of dog, but the old-time
trappers of the great plains and the Rockies led
such wandering lives of peril and hardship that
they could not readily take dogs with them. The
hunters of the Alleghanies and the Adirondacks
have, however, always used hounds to drive
deer, killing the animal in the water or at a
runway.

As soon, however, as the old wilderness-hunter
type passes away, hounds come into use among

158

Hunting with Hounds 159

his successors, the rough border settlers of the
backwoods and the plains. Every such settler is
apt to have four or five large mongrel dogs with
hound blood in them, which serve to drive off
beasts of prey from the sheepfold and cattle-shed,
and are also used, when the occasion suits, in
regular hunting, whether after bear or deer.

Many of the southern planters have always
kept packs of fox-hounds, which are used in the
chase, not only of the gray and the red fox, but
also of the deer, the black bear, and the wildcat.
The fox the dogs themselves run down and kill,
but as a rule, in this kind of hunting, when after
deer, bear, or even wildcat, the hunters carry
gims with them on their horses, and endeavor
either to get a shot at the fleeing animal by hard
and dexterous riding, or else to kill the cat when
treed, or the bear when it comes to bay. Such
hunting is great sport.

Killing driven game by lying in wait for it to
pass is the very poorest kind of sport that can be
called legitimate. This is the way the deer is
usually killed with hounds in the East. In the
North the red fox is often killed in somewhat
the same manner, being followed by a slow hound
and shot at as he circles before the dog. Although
this kind of fox-hunting is inferior to hunting on
horseback, it nevertheless has its merits, as the
man must walk and run well, shoot with some

i6o The Wilderness Hunter

accuracy, and show considerable knowledge both
of the country and of the habits of the game.

During the last score of years an entirely dif-
ferent type of dog from the fox-hound has firmly
established itself in the field of American sport.
This is the greyhound, whether the smooth-
haired or the rough-coated Scotch deerhound.
For half a century the army officers posted in
the far West have occasionally had greyhounds
with them, using the dogs to course jack-rabbit,
coyote, and sometimes deer, antelope, and gray
wolf. Many of them were devoted to this sport,
— General Custer, for instance. I have myself
hunted with many of the descendants of Custer
hounds. In the early '70's the ranchmen of the
great plains themselves began to keep greyhounds
for coursing (as indeed they had already been
used for a considerable time in California after the
Pacific coast jack-rabbit), and the sport speedily
assumed large proportions and a permanent form.
Nowadays the ranchmen of the cattle country
not only use their greyhounds after the jack-
rabbit, but also after every other kind of game
animal to be found there, the antelope and coyote
being especial favorites. Many ranchmen soon
grew to own fine packs, coursing being the sport
of all sports for the plains. In Texas the wild
turkey was frequently an object of the chase, and
wherever the locality enabled deer to be followed

Hunting with Hounds i6i

in the open, as for instance in the Indian terri-
tory, and in many places in the neighborhood of
the large plains rivers, the whit et ail was a favorite
quarry, the hunters striving to surprise it in the
early morning when feeding on the prairie.

I have myself generally coursed with scratch
packs, including perhaps a couple of greyhounds,
a wire-haired deerhound, and two or three long-
legged mongrels. However, we generally had at
least one very fast and savage dog — a strike dog
— in each pack, and the others were of assistance
in turning the game, sometimes in tiring it, and
usually in helping to finish it at the worry. With
such packs I have had many a wildly exciting ride
over the great grassy plains lying near the Little
Missouri and the Knife and Heart rivers. Usually,
our proceedings on such a hunt were perfectly
simple. We started on horseback, and when
reaching favorable ground beat across it in a long
scattered line of men and dogs. Anything that
we put up, from a fox to a coyote or a prongbuck,
was fair game, and was instantly followed at full
speed. The animals we most frequently killed
were jack-rabbits. They always gave good runs,
though like other game they differed much indi-
vidually in speed. The foxes did not run so well,
and, whether they were the little swift or the big
red prairie-fox, they were speedily snapped up if
the dogs had a fair showing. Once our dogs

VOL. II. — II.

i62 The Wilderness Hunter

roused a blacktail buck close up out of a brush
coulie where the ground was moderately smooth,
and after a headlong chase of a mile they ran
into him, threw him, and killed him before he
could rise. (His stiff -legged botinds sent him
along at a tremendous pace at first, but he seemed
to tire rather easily.) On two or three occasions
we killed whitetail deer, and several times ante-
lope. Usually, however, the antelopes escaped.
The bucks sometimes made a good fight, but gen-
erally they were seized while running, some dogs
catching by the throat, others by the shoulders,
and others again by the flank just in front of the
hind leg. Wherever the hold was obtained, if the
dog made his spring cleverly, the buck was sure
to come down with a crash, and if the other dogs
were anywhere near he was probably killed before
he could rise, although not infrequently the dogs
themselves were more or less scratched in the con-
tests. Some greyhounds, even of high breeding,
proved absolutely useless from timidity, being
afraid to take hold; but if they got accustomed
to the chase, being worked with old dogs, and
had any pluck at all, they proved singularly fear-
less. A big ninety -pound greyhound or Scotch
deerhound is a very formidable fighting dog; I
saw one whip a big mastiff in short order, his
wonderful agility being of more account than his
adversary's superior weight.

Hunting with Hounds 163

The proper way to course, however, is to take
the dogs out in a wagon and drive them thus
until the game is seen. This prevents their being
tired out. In my own hunting, most of the ante-
lope aroused got away, the dogs being jaded when
the chase began. But really fine greyhounds,
accustomed to work together and to hunt this
species of game, will usually render a good ac-
count of a prongbuck if two or three are slipped
at once, fresh, and within a moderate distance.

Although most Westerners take more kindly to
the rifle, now and then one is found who is a
devotee of the hound. Such a one was an old
Missourian, who may be called Mr. Cowley, whom
I knew when he was living on a ranch in North
Dakota, west of the Missouri. Mr. Cowley was a
primitive person, of much nerve, which he showed
not only in the hunting-field but in the startling
political conventions of the place and period. He
was quite well off, but he was above the niceties
of personal vanity. His hunting garb was that
in which he also paid his rare formal calls — calls
throughout which he always preserved the gravity
of an Indian, though having a disconcerting way
of suddenly tip-toeing across the room to some
unfamiliar object, such as a peacock screen or
a vase, feeling it gently with one forefinger,
and returning with noiseless gait to his chair,
unmoved, and making no comment. On the

1 64 The Wilderness Hunter

morning of a hunt he would always appear on a
stout horse, clad in a long linen duster, a huge club
in his hand, and his trousers working half-way
up his legs. He hunted everything on all possible
occasions ; and he never under any circumstances
shot an animal that the dogs could kill. Once,
when a skunk got into his house, with the direful
stupidity of its perverse kind, he turned the
hounds on it — a manifestation of sporting spirit
which aroused the ire of even his long-suffering
wife. As for his dogs, provided they could run
and fight, he cared no more for their looks than
for his own; he preferred the animal to be half
greyhound, but the other half could be fox-hound,
collie, or setter — it mattered nothing to him. They
were a wicked, hard-biting crew for all that, and
Mr. Cowley, in his flapping linen duster, was a first-
class hunter and a good rider. He went almost
mad with excitement in every chase. His pack
usually hunted coyote, fox, jack-rabbit, and deer,
and I have had more than one good run with it.
My own experience is too limited to allow me
to pass judgment with certainty as to the relative
speed of the different beasts of the chase, espe-
cially as there is so much individual variation. I
consider the antelope the fleetest of all, however ;
and in this opinion I am sustained by Colonel
Roger D. Williams, of Lexington, Kentucky, who,
more than any other American, is entitled to

Huntino^ with Hounds 165

^&

speak upon coursing, and especially upon cours-
ing large game. Colonel Williams, like a true
son of Kentucky, has bred his own thoroughbred
horses and thoroughbred hounds for many years;
and during a series of long hunting trips extend-
ing over nearly a quarter of a century he has
tried his pack on almost every game animal to
be found among the foothills of the Rockies and
on the great plains. His dogs, both smooth-
haired greyhounds and rough-coated deerhounds,
have been bred by him for generations with a
special view to the chase of big game — not merely
of hares ; they are large animals, excelling not only
in speed but also in strength, endurance, and
ferocious courage. The survivors of his old pack
are literally seamed all over with the scars of in-
numerable battles. When several dogs were to-
gether they would stop a bull elk, and fearlessly
assail a bear or cougar. This pack scored many
a triumph over blacktail, whitetail, and prong-
buck. For a few hundred yards the deer were
very fast; but in a run of any duration the ante-
lope showed much greater speed, and gave the
dogs far more trouble, although always overtaken
in the end, if a good start had been obtained.
Colonel Williams is a firm believer in the power
of the thoroughbred horse to outrun any animal
that breathes, in a long chase ; he has not infre-
quently run down deer, when they were jumped

i66 The Wilderness Hunter

some miles from cover; and on two or three oc-
casions he ran down uninjured antelope, but in
each case only after a desperate ride of miles,
which in one instance resulted in the death of his
gallant horse.

This coursing on the prairie, especially after
big game, is an exceedingly manly and attract-
ive sport; the furious galloping, often over
rough ground with an occasional deep washout
or gully, the sight of the gallant hounds running
and tackling, and the exhilaration of the pure
air and wild surroundings, all combine to give it
a peculiar zest. But there is really less need of
bold and skilful horsemanship than in the other-
wise less attractive and more artificial sport of
fox-hunting, or riding to hounds, in a closed and
long-settled country.

Those of us who are in part of southern blood
have a hereditary right to be fond of cross-
country riding; for our forefathers in Virginia,
Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for six generations
followed the fox with horse, horn, and hound.
In the long-settled Northern States the sport has
been less popular, though much more so now than
formerly; yet it has always existed, here and
there, and in certain places has been followed
quite steadily.

In no place in the Northeast is hunting the wild
red fox put on a more genuine and healthy basis

Hunting with Hounds 167

than in the Genesee valley, in central New York.
There has always been fox-hunting in this valley,
the farmers having good horses and being fond
of sport ; but it was conducted in a very irregular,
primitive manner, until some twenty years ago
Mr. Austin Wadsworth turned his attention to
it. He has been master of fox-hounds ever since,
and no pack in the country has yielded better
sport than his, or has brought out harder riders
among the men and stronger jumpers among the
horses. Mr. Wadsworth began his hunting by
picking up some of the various trencher-fed hounds
of the neighborhood, the hunting of that period
being managed on the principle of each farmer
bringing to the meet the hound or hounds he
happened to possess, and appearing on foot or
horseback, as his fancy dictated. Having gotten
together some of these native hounds and started
fox-hunting in localities where the ground was so
open as to necessitate following the chase on
horseback, Mr. Wadsworth imported a number
of dogs from the best English kennels. He found
these to be much faster than the American dogs
and more accustomed to work together, but less
enduring, and without such good noses. The
American hounds were very obstinate and self-
willed. Each wished to work out the trail for
himself. But once found, they would puzzle it
out, no matter how cold, and would follow it, if

1 68 The Wilderness Hunter

necessary, for a day and night. By a judicious
crossing of the two Mr. Wadsworth finally got
his present fine pack, which, for its own particular
work on its own ground, would be hard to beat.
The country ridden over is well wooded, and there
are many foxes „ The abundance of cover, how-
ever, naturally decreases the number of kills. It
is a very fertile land, and there are few farming
regions more beautiful, for it is prevented from
being too tame in aspect by the number of bold
hills and deep ravines. Most of the fences are
high post-and-rails or "snake" fences, although
there is an occasional stone wall, haha, or water-
jump. The steepness of the ravines and the
density of the timber make it necessary for a
horse to be sure-footed and able to scramble any-
where, and the fences are so high that none but
very good jumpers can possibly follow the pack.
Most of the horses used are bred by the farmers
in the neighborhood, or are from Canada, and they
usually have thoroughbred or trotting-stock blood
in them.

One of the pleasantest days I ever passed in the
saddle was after Mr. Wadsworth's hounds. I was
staying with him at the time, in company with my
friend Senator Cabot Lodge, of Boston. The meet
was about twelve miles distant from the house. It
was only a small field of some twenty-five riders,
but there was not one who did not mean going.

Hunting with Hounds 169

I was mounted on a young horse, a powerful, big-
boned black, a great jumper, though perhaps a
trifle hot-headed. Lodge was on a fine bay,
which could both run and jump. There were
two or three other New Yorkers and Bostonians
present, several men who had come up from Buf-
falo for the run, a couple of retired army officers,
a number of farmers from the neighborhood, and,
finally, several members of a noted local family
of hard riders, who formed a class by themselves,
all having taken naturally to every variety of
horsemanship from earliest infancy.

It was a thoroughly democratic assemblage;
every one was there for sport, and nobody cared
an ounce how he or anybody else was dressed.
Slouch hats, brown coats, corduroy breeches, and
leggings, or boots, were the order of the day.
We cast off in a thick wood. The dogs struck a
trail almost immediately and were off with clam-
orous yelping, while the hunt thundered after
them like a herd of buffaloes. We went head-
long down the hillside into and across a brook.
Here the trail led straight up a sheer bank. Most
of the riders struck off to the left for an easier
place, which was unfortunate for them, for the
eight of us who went straight up the side (one
man's horse falling back with him) were the only
ones who kept on terms with the hounds. Almost
as soon as we got to the top of the bank we came

170 The Wilderness Hunter

out of the woods over a low but awkward rail
fence, where one of our number, who was riding
a very excitable sorrel colt, got a fall. This left
but six, including the whip. There were two or
three large fields with low fences; then we came
to two high, stiff doubles, the first real jumping
of the day, the fences being over four feet six,
and so close together that the horses barely had
a chance to gather themselves. We got over,
however, crossed two or three stump-strewn fields,
galloped through an open wood, picked our way
across a marshy spot, jumped a small brook and
two or three stiff fences, and then came a check.
Soon the hounds recovered the line and swung off
to the right, back across four or five fields, so as
to enable the rest of the hunt, by making an
angle, to come up. Then we jumped over a very
high board fence into the main road, out of it
again, and on over ploughed fields and grass-
lands, separated by stiff snake fences. The run
had been fast and the horses were beginning to
tail. By the time we suddenly rattled down into
a deep ravine and scrambled up the other side
through thick timber there were but four of us
left. Lodge and myself being two of the lucky
ones. Beyond this ravine we came to one of the
worst jumps of the day, a fence out of the wood,
which was practicable only at one spot, where a
kind of cattle trail led up to a panel. It was

Hunting with Hounds 171

within an inch or two of five feet high. How-
ever, the horses, thoroughly trained to timber
jumping and to rough and hard scrambling in
awkward places, and by this time well quieted,
took the bars without mistake, each one in turn
trotting or cantering up to within a few yards,
then making a couple of springs and bucking over
with a great twist of the powerful haunches. I
may explain that there was not a horse of the
four that had not a record of five feet six inches
in the ring. We now got into a perfect tangle
of ravines, and the fox went to earth ; and though
we started one or two more in the course of the
afternoon, we did not get another really first-class
run.

At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoyment
of this sport are exceptionally favorable. In the
Northeast generally, although there are now a
number of well-established hunts, at least nine
out of ten runs are after a drag. Most of the
hunts are in the neighborhood of great cities, and
are mainly kept up by young men who come
from them. A few of these are men of leisure,
who can afford to devote their whole time to
pleasure; but much the larger number are men
in business, who work hard and are obliged to
make their sports accommodate themselves to
their more serious occupations. Once or twice
a week they can get off for an afternoon's ride

172 The Wilderness Hunter

across country, and they then wish to be abso-
lutely certain of having their run, and of having
it at the appointed time; and the only way to
insure this is to have a drag-hunt. It is not the
lack of foxes that has made the sport so com-
monly take the form of riding to drag-hounds,
but rather the fact that the majority of those
who keep it up are hardworking business men ||

who wish to make the most out of every moment
of the little time they can spare from their regu-
lar occupations. A single ride across country, or
an afternoon at polo, will yield more exercise, fun,
and excitement than can be got out of a week's
decorous and dull riding in the park, and many
young fellows have waked up to this fact.

At one time I did a good deal of hunting with
the Meadowbrook hounds in the northern part of
Long Island. There were plenty of foxes around
us, both red and gray, but partly for the reasons
given above, and partly because the covers were
so large and so nearly continuous, they were not
often hunted, although an effort was always made
to have one run every week or so after a wild fox,
in order to give a chance for the hounds to be
properly worked and to prevent the runs from be-
coming a mere succession of steeple-chases. The
sport was mainly drag-hunting, and was most ex-
citing, as the fences were high and the pace fast.
The Long Island country needs a peculiar style

Hunting with Hounds 173

of horse, the first requisite being that he shall be
a very good and high-timber jumper. Quite a
number of crack English and Irish hunters have
at different times been imported, and some of
them have turned out pretty well ; but when they
first come over they are utterly imable to cross
our country, blundering badly at the high timber.
Few of them have done as well as the American
horses. I have hunted half a dozen times in
England, with the Pytchely, Essex, and North
Warwickshire, and it seems to me probable that
English thoroughbreds, in a grass country, and
over the peculiar kinds of obstacles they have on
the other side of the water, would gallop away from
a field of our Long Island horses; for they have
speed and bottom, and are great weight carriers.
But on our own ground, where the cross-country
riding is more like leaping a succession of five-
and six-bar gates than anything else, they do not
as a rule, in spite of the enormous prices paid for
them, show themselves equal to the native stock.
The highest recorded jump, seven feet two inches,
was made by the American horse Filemaker,
which I saw ridden in the very front by Mr. H. L.
Herbert, in the hunt at Sagamore Hill, about to
be described.

When I was a member of the Meadowbrook
hunt, most of the meets were held within a
dozen miles or so of the kennels : at Farmingdale,

174 The Wilderness Hunter

Woodbury, Wheatly, Locust Valley, Syosset, or
near any one of twenty other queer, quaint old
Long Island hamlets. They were almost always
held in the afternoon, the business men who had
come down from the city jogging over behind the
hounds to the appointed place, where they were
met by the men who had ridden over direct
from their country-houses. If the meet was an
important one, there might be a crowd of on-
lookers in every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand
drag to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a pair
of long-tailed trotters, the money value of which
many times surpassed that of the two best hunt-
ers in the whole field. Now and then a breakfast
would be given the hunt at some country-house,
when the whole day was devoted to the sport;
perhaps after wild foxes in the morning, with a
drag in the afternoon.

After one meet, at Sagamore Hill, I had the
curiosity to go on foot over the course we had
taken, measuring the jumps; for it is very diffi-
cult to form a good estimate of a fence's height
when in the field, and five feet of timber seems
a much easier thing to take when sitting around
the fire after dinner than it does when actually
faced while the hounds are running. On the par-
ticular hunt in question we ran about ten miles,
at a rattling pace, with only two checks, crossing
somewhat more than sixty fences, most of them

Hunting with Hounds 175

post-and-rails, stiff as steel, the others being of
the kind called '' Virginia " or snake, and not more
than ten or a dozen in the whole lot under four
feet in height. The highest measured five feet
and half an inch, two others were four feet eleven,
and nearly a third of the number averaged about
four and a half. There were also several rather
awkward doubles. When the hounds were cast
off some forty riders were present, but the first
fence was a savage one, and stopped all who
did not mean genuine hard going. Twenty -six
horses crossed it, one of them ridden by a lady.
A mile or so farther on, before there had been a
chance for much tailing, we came to a five-bar
gate, out of a road — a jump of just four feet five
inches from the take-off. Up to this, of course,
we went one at a time, at a trot or hand-gallop,
and twenty-five horses cleared it in succession
without a single refusal and with but one mis-
take. Owing to the severity of the pace, com^
bined with the average height of the timber
(although no one fence was of phenomenally
noteworthy proportions), a good many falls took
place, resulting in an unusually large percentage
of accidents. The master partly dislocated one
knee, another man broke two ribs, and another
— the present writer — broke his arm. However,
almost all of us managed to struggle through to
the end in time to see the death.

176 The Wilderness Hunter

On this occasion I owed my broken arm to
the fact that my horse, a solemn animal, origi-
nally taken out of a buggy, though a very clever
fencer, was too coarse to gallop alongside the
blooded beasts against which he was pitted. But
he was so easy in his gaits, and so quiet, being
ridden with only a snaffle, that there was no dif-
ficulty in following to the end of the run. I had
divers adventures on this horse. Once I tried a
pair of so-called "safety" stirrups, which speedily
fell out, and I had to ride through the run with-
out any, at the cost of several tumbles. Much
the best hunter I ever owned was a sorrel horse
named Sagamore. He was from Geneseo, was
fast, a remarkably good jumper, of great endu-
rance, as quick on his feet as a cat, and with a
dauntless heart. He never gave me a fall, and
generally enabled me to see all the run.

It would be very unfair to think the sport
especially dangerous on account of the occasional
accidents that happen. A man who is fond of
riding, but who sets a good deal of value — either
for the sake of himself, his family, or his busi-
ness— upon his neck and limbs, can hunt with
much safety if he gets a quiet horse, a safe fencer,
and does not try to stay in the front rank. Most
accidents occur to men on green or wild horses,
or else to those who keep in front only at the
expense of pumping their mounts; and a fall

Hunting with Hounds 177

with a done-out beast is always peculiarly dis-
agreeable. Most falls, however, do no harm
whatever to either horse or rider, and after they
have picked themselves up and shaken them-
selves, the couple ought to be able to go on just
as well as ever. Of course a man who wishes to
keep in the first flight must expect to face a
certain number of tumbles; but even he will
probably not be hurt at all, and he can avoid
many a mishap by easing up his horse whenever
he can — that is, by always taking a gap when
possible, going at the lowest panel of every fence,
and not calling on his animal for all there is in
him unless it cannot possibly be avoided. It
must be remembered that hard riding is a very
different thing from good riding; though a
good rider to hounds must also at times ride
hard.

Cross-country riding in the rough is not a diffi-
cult thing to learn; always provided the would-
be learner is gifted with or has acquired a fairly
stout heart, for a constitutionally timid person is
out of place in the hunting field. A really finished
cross-country rider, a man who combines hand
and seat, heart and head, is of course rare; the
standard is too high for most of us to hope to
reach. But it is comparatively easy to acquire
a light hand and a capacity to sit fairly well down
in the saddle ; and when a man has once got these,

VOL. II. — 12.

178 The Wilderness Hunter

he will find no especial difficulty in following the
hounds on a trained hunter.

Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as foolish
to make a fetish of it as it is to decry it. The
fox is hunted merely because there is no larger
game to follow. As long as wolves, deer, or ante-
lope remain in the land, and in a country where
hounds and horsemen can work, no one would
think of following the fox. It is pursued because
the bigger beasts of the chase have been killed
out. In England it has reached its present prom-
inence only within two centuries; nobody fol-
lowed the fox while the stag and the boar were
common. At the present day, on Exmoor, where
the wild stag is still found, its chase ranks ahead
of that of the fox. It is not really the hunting
proper which is the point in fox-hunting. It is
the horsemanship, the galloping and jumping, and
the being out in the open air. Very naturally,
however, men who have passed their lives as fox-
hunters grow to regard the chase and the object
of it alike with superstitious veneration. They
attribute almost mythical characters to the ani-
mal. I know some of my good Virginian friends,
for instance, who seriously believe that the Vir-
ginia red fox is a beast quite unparalleled for
speed and endurance no less than for cunning.
This is, of course, a mistake. Compared with a
wolf, an antelope, or even a deer, the fox's speed

Hunting with Hounds 179

and endurance do not stand very high. A good
pack of hounds starting him close would speedily
run into him in the open. The reason that the
hunts last so long in some cases is because of
the nature of the ground which favors the fox at
the expense of the dogs, because of his having the
advantage in the start, and because of his cun-
ning in turning to account everything which will
tell in his favor and against his pursuers. In
the same way I know plenty of English friends
who speak with bated breath of fox-hunting
but look down upon riding to drag-hounds. Of
course there is a difference in the two sports,
and the fun of actually hunting the wild beast
in the one case more than compensates for the
fact that in the other the riding is apt to be
harder and the jumping higher; but both sports
are really artificial, and in their essentials alike.
To any man who has hunted big game in a wild
country the stress laid on the differences between
them seems a little absurd, in fact cockney. It
is of course nothing against either that it is arti-
ficial ; so are all sports in long-civilized countries,
from lacrosse to ice-yachting.

It is amusing to see how natural it is for each
man to glorify the sport to which he has been
accustomed at the expense of any other. The
old-school French sportsman, for instance, who
followed the boar, stag, and hare with his hounds,

i8o The Wilderness Hunter

always looked down upon the chase of the fox;
whereas the average Englishman not only asserts
but seriously believes that no other kind of chase
can compare with it, although in actual fact the
very points in which the Englishman is superior
to the continental sportsman — -that is, in hard
and straight riding and jumping — are those which
drag-hunting tends to develop rather more than
fox-hunting proper. In the mere hunting itself
the continental sportsman is often unsurpassed.

Once, beyond the Missouri, I met an expatriated
German baron, an unfortunate who had failed ut-
terly in the rough life of the frontier. He was
living in a squalid little hut, almost unfurnished,
but studded around with the diminutive horns
of the European roebuck. These were the only
treasures he had taken with him to remind him
of his former life, and he was never tired of de-
scribing what fun it was to shoot roebucks when
driven by the little crooked-legged dachshunds.
There were plenty of deer and antelope round-
about, yielding good sport to any rifleman, but
this exile cared nothing for them; they were not
roebucks, and they could not be chased with his
beloved dachshunds. So, among my neighbors in
the cattle country, is a gentleman from France, a
very successful ranchman, and a thoroughly good
fellow; he cares nothing for hunting big game,
and will not go after it, but is devoted to shoot-

Hunting with Hounds i8i

ing cottontails in the snow, this being a pastime
having much resemblance to one of the recog-
nized sports of his own land.

However, our own people afford precisely simi-
lar instances. I have met plenty of men accus-
tomed to killing wild turkeys and deer with
small-bore rifles in the southern forests who,
when they got on the plains and in the Rockies,
were absolutely helpless. They not only failed
to become proficient in the art of killing big
game at long ranges with the large-bore rifle, at
the cost of fatiguing tramps, but they had a posi-
tive distaste for the sport and would never allow
that it equalled their own stealthy hunts in east-
ern forests. So I know plenty of men, experts
with the shotgun, who honestly prefer shooting
quail in the East over well-trained setters or
pointers, to the hardier, manlier sports of the
wilderness.

As it is with hunting, so it is with riding. The
cowboy's scorn of every method of riding save
his own is as profound and as ignorant as is that
of the school-rider, jockey, or fox-hunter. The
truth is that each of these is best in his own
sphere and is at a disadvantage when made to do
the work of any of the others. For all-around
riding and horsemanship, I think the West Point
graduate is somewhat ahead of any of them.
Taken as a class, however, and compared with

1 82 The Wilderness Hunter

other classes as numerous, and not with a few
exceptional individuals, the cowboy, like the
Rocky Mountain stage-driver, has no superiors
an3rwhere for his own work; and they are fine
fellows, these iron-nerved reinsmen and rough
riders.

When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe
they made a practice in England, France, Ger-
many, and Italy, of offering to break and ride, in
their own fashion, any horse given them. They
were frequently given spoiled animals from the
cavalry services in the different countries which
they passed, animals with which the trained
horse-breakers of the European armies could do
nothing; and yet in almost all cases the cow-
punchers and bronco-busters with Buffalo Bill
mastered these beasts as readily as they did their
own western horses. At their own work of mas-
tering and riding rough horses they could not
be matched by their more civilized rivals; but I
have great doubts whether they in turn would
not have been beaten if they had essayed kinds
of horsemanship utterly alien to their past ex-
perience, such as riding mettled thoroughbreds in
a steeple-chase, or the like. Other things being
equal (which, however, they generally are not),
a bad, big horse fed on oats offers a rather more
difficult problem than a bad little horse fed on
grass. After Buffalo Bill's men had returned, I

Hunting with Hounds 183

occasionally heard it said that they had tried cross-
country riding in England, and had shown them-
selves pre-eminently skilful thereat, doing better
than the English fox-hunters, but this I take the
liberty to disbelieve. I was in England at the
time, hunted occasionally myself, and was with
many of the men who were all the time riding in
the most famous hunts; men, too, who were
greatly impressed with the exhibitions of rough
riding then being given by Buffalo Bill and his
men, and who talked of them much; and yet I
never, at the time, heard of an instance in which
one of the cowboys rode to hounds with any
marked success.' In the same way, I have some-
times in New York or London heard of men who,
it was alleged, had been out West and proved
better riders than the bronco-busters themselves,
just as I have heard of similar men who were able
to go out hunting in the Rockies or on the plains
and get more game than the western hunters ; but
in the course of a long experience in the West I
have yet to see any of these men, whether from
the eastern States or from Europe, actually show
such superiority or perform such feats.

It would be interesting to compare the per-

^ It is, however, quite possible, now that Buffalo Bill's
company has crossed the water several times, that a number
of the cowboys have by practice become proficient in riding
to hounds, and in steeple-chasing.

1 84 The Wilderness Hunter

formances of the Australian stock-riders with
those of our own cow-punchers, both in cow-work
and in riding. The Austrahans have an entirely
different kind of saddle, and the use of the rope
is unknown among them. A couple of years ago
the famous western rifle-shot. Carver, took some
cowboys out to Australia, and I am informed
that many of the Australians began themselves
to practise with the rope after seeing the way
it was used by the Americans. An Australian
gentleman, Mr. A. J. Sage, of Melbourne, to whom
I had written asking how the saddles and styles of
riding compared, answered me as follows:

"With regard to saddles, here it is a moot
question which is the better, yours or ours, for
buck-jumpers. Carver's boys rode in their own
saddles against our Victorians in theirs, all on
Australian buckers, and honors seemed easy.
Each was good in his own style, but the horses
were not what I should call really good buckers,
such as you might get on a back station, and
so there was nothing in the show that could un-
seat the cowboys. It is only back in the bush
that you can get a really good bucker. I have
often seen one of them put both man and saddle
off."

This last is a feat I have myself seen per-
formed in the West. I suppose the amount of it
is that both the American and the Australian

Hunting with Hounds 185

rough riders are, for their own work, just as good
as men possibly can be.

One spring I had to leave the East in the midst
of the hunting season, to join a round-up in the
cattle country of western Dakota, and it was
curious to compare the totally different styles of
riding of the cowboys and the cross-country men.
A stock-saddle weighs thirty or forty pounds, in-
stead of ten or fifteen, and needs an utterly dif-
ferent seat from that adopted in the East. A
cowboy rides with very long stirrups, sitting
forked well down between his high pommel and
cantle, and depends upon balance as well as on
the grip of his thighs. In cutting out a steer from
a herd, in breaking a vicious wild horse, in sitting
a bucking bronco, in stopping a night stampede of
many hundred maddened animals, or in the per-
formance of a hundred other feats of reckless and
daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely
unequalled; and when he has his own horse-gear
he sits his animal with the ease of a centaur.
Yet he is quite helpless the first time he gets
astride one of the small eastern saddles. One
summer, while purchasing cattle in Iowa, one of
of my ranch foremen had to get on an ordinary
saddle to ride out of town and see a bunch of
steers. He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch,
and will without hesitation mount and master
beasts that I doubt if the boldest rider in one of

1 86 The Wilderness Hunter

our eastern hunts would care to tackle ; yet his
uneasiness on the new saddle was fairly comical.
At first he did not dare to trot, and the least
plunge of the horse bid fair to unseat him, nor
did he begin to get accustomed to the situation
until the very end of the journey. In fact, the
two kinds of riding are so very different that a
man accustomed only to one feels almost as ill
at ease when he first tries the other as if he had
never sat on a horse's back before. It is rather
funny to see a man who only knows one kind,
and is conceited enough to think that that is
really the only kind worth knowing, when first
he is brought into contact with the other. Two
or three times I have known men try to follow
hounds on stock-saddles, which are about as ill-
suited for the purpose as they well can be ; while
it is even more laughable to see some young fel-
low from the East or from England, who thinks he
knows entirely too much about horses to be taught
by barbarians, attempt in his turn to do cow- work
with his ordinary riding or hunting rig. It must
be said, however, that in all probability cowboys
would learn to ride well across country much sooner
than the average cross-country rider would master
the dashing and peculiar style of horsemanship
shown by those whose life business is to guard the
wandering herds of the great western plains.
Of course, riding to hounds, like all sports in

Hunting with Hounds 187

long settled, thickly peopled countries, fails to
develop in its followers some of the hardy quali-
ties necessarily incident to the wilder pursuits of
the mountain and the forest. While I was on
the frontier I was struck by the fact that of the
men from the eastern States or from England who
had shown themselves at home to be good riders
to hounds or had made their records as college
athletes, a larger proportion failed in the life of
the wilderness than was the case among those
who had gained their experience in such rough
pastimes as mountaineering in the high Alps,
winter caribou-hunting in Canada, or deer-stalk-
ing— not deer-driving — in Scotland.

Nevertheless, of all sports possible in civilized
countries, riding to hounds is perhaps the best
if followed as it should be, for the sake of the
strong excitement, with as much simplicity as
possible, and not merely as a fashionable amuse-
ment. It tends to develop moral no less than
physical qualities; the rider needs nerve and
head; he must possess daring and resolution, as
well as a good deal of bodily skill and a certain
amount of wiry toughness and endurance.

CHAPTER VIII

WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS

THE wolf is the archetype of ravin, the beast
of waste and desolation. It is still found
scattered thinly throughout all the wilder
portions of the United States, but has everywhere
retreated from the advance of civilization.

Wolves show an infinite variety in color, size,
physical formation, and temper. Almost all the
varieties intergrade with one another, however, so
that it is very difficult to draw a hard and fast
line between any two of them. Nevertheless,
west of the Mississippi there are found two dis-
tinct types. One is the wolf proper, or big wolf,
specifically akin to the wolves of the eastern
States. The other is the little coyote, or prairie
wolf. The coyote and the big wolf are found
together in almost all the wilder districts from
the Rio Grande to the valleys of the Upper Mis-
souri and the Upper Columbia. Throughout this
region there is always a sharp line of demark-
ation, especially in size, between the coyotes
and the big wolves of any given district; but in
certain districts the big wolves are very much

i88

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 189

larger than their brethren in other districts. In
the Upper Columbia country, for instance, they
are very large; along the Rio Grande they are
small. Dr. Hart Merriam informs me that, ac-
cording to his experience, the coyote is largest in
southern California. In many respects the coyote
differs altogether in habits from its big relative.
For one thing it is far more tolerant of man. In
some localities coyotes are more numerous around
settlements, and even in the close vicinity of large
towns, than they are in the frowning and desolate
fastnesses haunted by their grim elder brother.

Big wolves vary far more in color than the
coyotes do. I have seen white, black, red, yel-
low, brown, gray, and grizzled skins, and others
representing every shade between, although usu-
ally each locality has its prevailing tint. The
grizzled, gray, and brown often have precisely
the coat of the coyote. The difference in size
among wolves of different localities, and even of
the same locality, is quite remarkable, and so,
curiously enough, is the difference in the size of
the teeth, in some cases even when the body of
one wolf is as big as that of another. I have
seen wolves from Texas and New Mexico which
were undersized, slim animals with rather small
tusks, in no way to be compared to the long-
toothed giants of their race that dwell in the
heavily timbered mountains of the Northwest and

190 The Wilderness Hunter

in the far North. As a rule, the teeth of the coyote
are relatively smaller than those of the gray wolf.
Formerly, wolves were incredibly abundant in
certain parts of the coimtry, notably on the great
plains, where they were known as buffalo- wolves,
and were regular attendants on the great herds of
the bison. Every traveller and hunter of the old
days knew them as among the most common sights
of the plains, and they followed the hunting par-
ties and emigrant trains for the sake of the scraps
left in camp. Now, however, there is no district
in which they are really abundant. The wolfers,
or professional wolf -hunters, who killed them by
poisoning for the sake of their fur, and the cattle-
men, who likewise killed them by poisoning be-
cause of their raids on the herds, have doubtless
been the chief instruments in working their deci-
mation on the plains. In the '70's and even in
the early '8o's, many tens of thousands of wolves
were killed by the wolfers in Montana and northern
Wyoming and western Dakota. Nowadays, the
surviving wolves of the plains have learned cau-
tion ; they no longer move abroad at midday, and
still less do they dream of hanging on the foot-
steps of hunter and traveller. Instead of being
one of the most common they have become one of
the rarest sights of the plains. A hunter may
wander far and wide through the plains for months
nowadays and never see a wolf, though he will

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 191

probably see many coyotes. However, the dimi-
nution goes on, not steadily but by fits and starts,
and, moreover, the beasts now and then change
their abodes, and appear in numbers in places
where they have been scarce for a long period. In
the present winter of 1892-93 big wolves are more
plentiful in the neighborhood of my ranch than
they have been for ten years, and have worked
some havoc among the cattle and young horses.
The cowboys have been carrying on the usual vin-
dictive campaign against them; a number have
been poisoned, and a number of others have fallen
victims to their greediness, the cowboys surprising
them when gorged to repletion on the carcass of a
colt or calf, and, in consequence, unable to run, so
that they are easily ridden down, roped, and then
dragged to death.

Yet even the slaughter wrought by man in cer-
tain localities does not seem adequate to explain
the scarcity or extinction of wolves throughout
the country at large. In most places they are not
followed any more eagerly than are the other
large beasts of prey, and they are usually followed
with less success. Of all animals, the wolf is the
shyest and hardest to slay. It is almost or quite
as difficult to still-hunt as the cougar, and is far
more difficult to kill with hounds, traps, or poison ;
yet it scarcely holds its own as well as the great
cat, and it does not begin to hold its own as well

192 The Wilderness Hunter

as the bear, a beast certainly more readily killed,
and one which produces fewer young at a birth.
Throughout the east the black bear is common in
many localities from which the wolf has vanished
completely. It at present exists in very scanty
numbers in northern Maine and the Adirondacks ;
is almost or quite extinct in Pennsylvania ; lingers
here and there in the mountains from West Vir-
ginia to east Tennessee, and is found in Florida;
but is everywhere less abundant than the bear. It
is possible that this destruction of the wolves is
due to some disease among them, perhaps to hy-
drophobia, a terrible malady from which it is
known that they suffer greatly at times. Perhaps
the bear is helped by its habit of hibernating,
which frees it from most dangers during winter;
but this cannot be the complete explanation, for
in the South it does not hibernate, and yet holds
its own as well as in the North. What makes it all
the more curious that the American wolf should
disappear sooner than the bear, is that the reverse
is the case with the allied species of Europe, where
the bear is much sooner killed out of the land.

Indeed, the differences of this sort between
nearly related animals are literally inexplicable.
Much of the difference in temperament between
such closely allied species as the American and
European bears and wolves is doubtless due to
their surroundings and to the instincts they have

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 193

inherited through many generations ; but for much
of the variation it is not possible to offer any ex-
planation. In the same way, there are certain phys-
ical differences for which it is very hard to account,
as the same conditions seem to operate in directly
reverse ways with different animals. No one can
explain the process of natural selection which has
resulted in the otter of America being larger than
the otter of Europe, while the badger is smaller;
in the mink being with us a much stouter animal
than its Scandinavian and Russian kinsman,
while the reverse is true of our sable or pine mar-
ten. No one can say why the European red deer
should be a pigmy compared to its giant brother,
the American wapiti; why the Old World elk
should average smaller in size than the almost in-
distinguishable New World moose; and yet the
bison of Lithuania and the Caucasus be on the
whole larger and more formidable than its Amer-
ican cousin. In the same way, no one can tell why
under like conditions some game, such as the white-
goat and the spruce grouse, should be tamer than
other closely allied species, like the mountain
sheep and ruffed grouse. No one can say why, on
the whole, the wolf of Scandinavia and northern
Russia should be larger and more dangerous than
the average wolf of the Rocky Mountains, while
between the bears of the same regions the com-
parison must be exactly reversed.

VOL. II.— 13.

194 The Wilderness Hunter

The difference even among the wolves of differ-
ent sections of our own country is very notable.
It may be true that the species as a whole is
rather weaker and less ferocious than the Euro-
pean wolf; but it is certainly not true of the
wolves of certain localities. The great timber
wolf of the central and northern chains of the
Rockies and coast ranges is in every way a more
formidable creature than the buffalo-wolf of the
plains, although they intergrade. The skins and
skulls of the wolves of northwestern Montana and
Washington which I have seen were quite as large
and showed quite as stout claws and teeth as the
skins and skulls of Russian and Scandinavian
wolves, and I believe that these great timber
wolves are in every way as formidable as their
Old World kinsfolk. However, they live where
they come in contact with a population of rifle-
bearing frontier hunters, who are very different
from European peasants or Asiatic tribesmen;
and they have, even when most hungry, a whole-
some dread of human beings. Yet I doubt if an
unarmed man would be entirely safe should he,
while alone in the forest in midwinter, encounter
a fair-sized pack of ravenously hungry timber
wolves.

A full-grown dog-wolf of the northern Rockies,
in exceptional instances, reaches a height of thirty-
two inches and a weight of 130 pounds; a big

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 195

btiffalo-wolf of the Upper Missouri stands thirty or
thirty-one inches at the shoulder and weighs about
no pounds. A Texan wolf may not reach over
eighty pounds. The bitch- wolves are smaller;
and moreover there is often great variation even
in the wolves of closely neighboring localities.

The wolves of the southern plains were not often
formidable to large animals, even in the days when
they most abounded. They rarely attacked the
horses of the hunter, and indeed were but little re-
garded by these experienced animals. They were
much more likely to gnaw off the lariat with which
the horse was tied, than to try to molest the steed
himself. They preferred to prey on young animals
or on the weak and disabled. They rarely mo-
lested a full-grown cow or steer, still less a full-
grown buffalo, and, if they did attack such an
animal, it was only when emboldened by numbers.
In the plains of the Upper Missouri and Saskatch-
ewan the wolf was, and is, more dangerous, while
in the northern Rockies his courage and ferocity
attain their highest pitch. Near my own ranch
the wolves have sometimes committed great de-
predations on cattle, but they seem to have queer
freaks of slaughter. Usually they prey only upon
calves and sickly animals ; but in midwinter I have
known one single-handed to attack and kill a well-
grown steer or cow, disabling its quarry by rapid
snaps at the hams or flanks. Only rarely have I

196 The Wilderness Hunter

known it to seize by the throat. Colts are likewise
a favorite prey, but with us wolves rarely attack
full-grown horses. They are sometimes very bold
in their assaults, falling on the stock while imme-
diately around the ranch-houses. They even ven-
ture into the hamlet of Medora itself at night — as
the coyotes sometimes do by day. In the spring
of '92 we put on some eastern two-year-old steers;
they arrived, and were turned loose from the
stock-yards in a snow-storm, though it was in
early May. Next morning we found that one had
been seized, slain, and partially devoured by a big
wolf at the very gate of the stock-yard ; probably
the beast had seen it standing near the yard after
nightfall, feeling miserable after its journey, in
the storm and its unaccustomed surroundings,
and had been emboldened to make the assault so
near town by the evident helplessness of the prey.
The big timber wolves of the northern Rocky
Mountains attack every four-footed beast to be
found where they live. They are far from con-
tenting themselves with hunting deer and snap-
ping up the pigs and sheep of the farm. When the
weather gets cold and food scarce they band to-
gether in small parties, perhaps of four or five in-
dividuals, and then assail anything, even a bear or
a panther. A bull elk or bull moose, when on its
guard, makes a most dangerous fight ; but a single
wolf will frequently master the cow of either ani-

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 197

mal, as well as domestic cattle and horses. In at-
tacking such large game, however, the wolves like
to act in concert, one springing at the animal's
head, and attracting its attention, while the other
hamstrings it. Nevertheless, one such big wolf
will kill an ordinary horse. A man I knew, who
was engaged in packing into the Coeur d'Alenes,
once witnessed such a feat on the part of a wolf.
He was taking his pack-train down into a valley
when he saw a horse grazing therein ; it had been
turned loose by another packing outfit, because it
became exhausted. He lost sight of it as the trail
went down a zigzag, and while it was thus out of
sight he suddenly heard it utter the appalling
scream, unlike and more dreadful than any other
sound, which a horse only utters in extreme fright
or agony. The scream w^as repeated, and as he
came in sight again he saw that a great wolf had
attacked the horse. The poor animal had been
bitten terribly in its haunches and was cowering
upon them, while the wolf stood and looked at it
a few paces off. In a moment or two the horse
partially recovered and made a desperate bound
forward, starting at full gallop. Immediately the
wolf was after it, overhauled it in three or four
jumps, and then seized it by the hock, while its
legs were extended, with such violence as to bring
it completely back on its haunches. It again
screamed piteously; and this time with a few

19^ The Wilderness Hunter

savage snaps the wolf hamstrung and partially
disembowelled it, and it fell over, having made no
attempt to defend itself. I have heard of more
than one incident of this kind. If a horse is a
good fighter, however, as occasionally, though not
often happens, it is a most difficult prey for any
wild beast, and some veteran horses have no fear
of wolves whatsoever, well knowing that they can
either strike them down with their fore feet or
repulse them by lashing out behind.

Wolves are cunning beasts and will often try to
lull their prey into unsuspicion by playing round
and cutting capers. I once saw a young deer and
a wolf-cub together near the hut of the settler who
had captured both. The wolf was just old enough
to begin to feel vicious and bloodthirsty, and to
show symptoms of attacking the deer. On the
occasion in question he got loose and ran towards
it, but it turned, and began to hit him with its
fore feet, seemingly in sport; whereat he rolled
over on his back before it, and acted like a puppy
at play. Soon it turned and walked off; imme-
diately the wolf, with bristling hair, crawled after,
and with a pounce seized it by the haunch, and
would doubtless have murdered the bleating,
struggling creature, had not the bystanders inter-
fered.

Where there are no domestic animals, wolves
feed on almost anything, from a mouse to an elk.

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 199

They are redoubted enemies of foxes. They are
easily able to overtake them in fair chase, and kill
numbers. If the fox can get into the underbrush,
however, he can dodge around much faster than
the wolf, and so escape pursuit. Sometimes one
wolf will try to put a fox out of a cover while an-
other waits outside to snap him up. Moreover,
the wolf kills even closer kinsfolk than the fox.
When pressed by hunger it will undoubtedly
sometimes seize a coyote, tear it in pieces, and de-
vour it, although during most of the year the two
animals live in perfect harmony. I once myself,
while out in the deep snow, came across the re-
mains of a coyote that had been killed in this man-
ner. Wolves are also very fond of the flesh of
dogs, and if they get a chance promptly kill and
eat any dog they can master — and there are but
few that they cannot. Nevertheless, I have been
told of one instance in which a wolf struck up
an extraordinary friendship with a strayed dog,
and the two lived and hunted together for many
months, being frequently seen by the settlers of
the locality. This occurred near Thompson's Falls,
Montana.

Usually wolves are found singly, in pairs, or in
family parties, each having a large beat over
which it regularly hunts, and also at times shift-
ing its grounds and travelling immense dis-
tances in order to take up a temporary abode in

200 The Wilderness Hunter

some new locality — for they are great wandeiers.
It is only under stress of severe weather that
they band together in packs. They prefer to
creep on their prey and seize it by a sudden
pounce, but, unlike the cougar, they also run
it down in fair chase. Their slouching, tireless
gallop enables them often to overtake deer, ante-
lope, or other quarry ; though under favorable cir-
cumstances, especially if near a lake, the latter
frequently escape. Whether wolves run cunning
I do not know ; but I think they must, for coyotes
certainly do. A coyote cannot run down a jack-
rabbit; but two or three working together will
often catch one. Once I saw three start a jack,
which ran right away from them ; but they spread
out, and followed. Pretty soon the jack turned
slightly, and ran near one of the outside ones, saw
it, became much frightened, and turned at right
angles, so as soon to nearly run into the other out-
side one, which had kept straight on. This hap-
pened several times, and then the confused jack
lay down under a sage bush and was seized. So
I have seen two coyotes attempting to get at a
newly dropped antelope kid. One would make a
feint of attack, and lure the dam into a rush at
him, while the other stole round to get at the kid.
The dam, as always with these spirited little prong-
bucks, made a good fight, and kept the assailants
at bay ; yet I think they would have succeeded in

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 201

the end, had I not interfered. Coyotes are bold
and cunning in raiding the settlers' barn-yards for
lambs and hens ; and they have an especial liking
for tame cats. If there are coyotes in the neigh-
borhood a cat which gets into the habit of wan-
dering from home is surely lost.

Though I have never known wolves to attack a
man, yet in the wilder portion of the far North-
west I have heard them come around camp very
close, growling so savagely as to make one almost
reluctant to leave the camp-fire and go out into
the darkness unarmed. Once I was camped in the
fall near a lonely little lake in the mountains, by
the edge of quite a broad stream. Soon after
nightfall three or four wolves came around camp
and kept me awake by their sinister and dismal
howling. Two or three times they came so close
to the fire that I could hear them snap their jaws
and growl, and at one time I positively thought
that they intended to try to get into camp, so ex-
cited were they by the smell of the fresh meat.
After a while they stopped howling; and then all
was silent for an hour or so. I let the fire go out
and was turning into bed when I suddenly heard
some animal of considerable size come down to the
stream nearly opposite me and begin to splash
across, first wading, then swimming. It was pitch
dark and I could not possibly see, but I felt sure
it was a wolf. However, after coming half-way

202 The Wilderness Hunter

over, it changed its mind and swam back to the
opposite bank; nor did I see or hear anything
more of the night marauders.

Five or six times on the plains or on my ranch I
have had shots at wolves, always obtained by acci-
dent, and always, I regret to say, missed. Often the
wolf when seen was running at full speed for cover,
or else was so far off that though motionless my
shots went wide of it. But once have I with my
own rifle killed a wolf, and this was while travel-
ling with a pack-train in the mountains. We
had been making considerable noise, and L never
understood how an animal so wary permitted our
near approach. He did, nevertheless, and just as
we came to a little stream which we were to ford
I saw him get on a dead log some thirty yards dis-
tant and walk slowly off with his eyes turned
toward us. The first shot smashed his shoulders
and brought him down.

The wolf is one of the animals which can only
be hunted successfully with dogs. Most dogs,
however, do not take at all kindly to the pursuit.
A wolf is a terrible fighter. He will decimate a
pack of hounds by rabid snaps with his giant jaws
while suffering little damage himself ; nor are the
ordinary big dogs, supposed to be fighting dogs,
able to tackle him without special training. I
have known one wolf to kill a bulldog which had
rushed at it with a single snap, while another

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 203

which had entered the yard of a Montana ranch-
house slew in quick succession both of the large
mastiffs by which it was assailed. The immense
agility and ferocity of the wild beast, the terrible
snap of his long-toothed jaws, and the admi-
rable training in which he always is, give him a
great advantage over fat, small-toothed, smooth-
skinned dogs, even though they are nominally
supposed to belong to the fighting classes. In the
way that bench competitions are arranged now-
adays this is but natural, as there is no temptation
to produce a worthy class of fighting dog when
the rewards are given upon technical points wholly
unconnected with the dog's usefulness. A prize-
winning mastiff or bulldog may be almost useless
for the only purposes for which his kind is ever
useful at all. A mastiff, if properly trained and
of sufficient size, might possibly be able to meet a
young or undersized Texan wolf ; but I have never
seen a dog of this variety which I would esteem a
match singlehanded for one of the huge timber
wolves of western Montana. Even if the dog was
the heavier of the two, his teeth and claws would
be very much smaller and weaker and his hide less
tough. Indeed, I have known of but one dog
which, single-handed, encountered and slew a wolf;
this was the large vicious mongrel whose feats are
recorded in my Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.
General Marcy of the United States Army

204 The Wilderness Hunter

informed me that he once chased a huge wolf which
had gotten away with a small trap on its foot. It
was, I believe, in Wisconsin, and he had twenty or
thirty hounds with him, but they were entirely
untrained to wolf -hunting, and proved unable to
stop the crippled beast. Few of them would at-
tack it at all, and those that did went at it singly
and with a certain hesitation, and so each in turn
was disabled by a single terrible snap, and left
bleeding on the snow. General Wade Hampton
tells me that in the course of his fifty years' hunt-
ing with horse and hound in Mississippi, he has on
several occasions tried his pack of foxhounds
(southern deerhounds) after a wolf. He found
that it was with the greatest difficulty, however,
that he could persuade them to so much as follow
the trail. Usually, as soon as they came across it,
they would growl, bristle up, and then retreat
with their tails between their legs. But one of his
dogs ever really tried to master a wolf by itself,
and this one paid for its temerity with its life ; for
while running a wolf in a canebrake the beast
turned and tore it to pieces. Finally, General
Hampton succeeded in getting a number of his
hounds so they would at any rate follow the trail
in full cry, and thus drive the wolf out of the
thicket, and give a chance to the hunter to get a
shot. In this way he killed two or three.

The true way to kill wolves, however, is to

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 205

hunt them with greyhounds on the great plains.
Nothing more exciting than this sport can possibly
be imagined. It is not always necessary that the
greyhounds should be of absolutely pure blood.
Prize-winning dogs of high pedigree often prove
useless for the purposes. If by careful choice, how-
ever, a ranchman can get together a pack com-
posed both of the smooth-haired greyhound and the
rough-haired Scotch deerhound, he can have ex-
cellent sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best
if they have a slight cross of bulldog in their veins ;
but this is not necessary. If once a greyhound
can be fairly entered to the sport and acquires con-
fidence, then its wonderful agility, its sinewy
strength and speed, and the terrible snap with
which its jaws come together, render it a most
formidable assailant. Nothing can possibly exceed
the gallantry with which good greyhounds, when
their blood is up, fling themselves on a wolf or any
other foe. There does not exist, and there never
has existed on the wide earth, a more perfect type
of dauntless courage than such a hound. Not
Gushing when he steered his little launch through
the black night against the great ram Albemarle,
not Custer dashing into the valley of the Rosebud
to die with all his men, not Farragut himself lashed
in the rigging of the Hartford as she forged past the
forts to encounter her iron-clad foe, can stand as
a more perfect type of dauntless valor.

2o6 The Wilderness Hunter

Once I had the good fortune to witness a very
exciting hunt of this character among the foot-
hills of the northern Rockies. I was staying at
the house of a friendly cowman, whom I will call
Judge Yancy Stump. Judge Yancy Stump was a
Democrat who, as he phrased it, had fought for
his Democracy; that is, he had been in the Con-
federate Army. He was at daggers drawn with
his nearest neighbor, a cross-grained mountain
farmer, who may be known as old man Prindle.
Old man Prindle had been in the Union Army, and
his Republicanism was of the blackest and most
uncompromising type. There was one point, how-
ever, on which the two came together. They were
exceedingly fond of hunting with hounds. The
Judge had three or four track-hounds, and four of
what he called swift-hounds, the latter including
one pure-bred greyhound bitch of wonderful speed
and temper, a dun-colored yelping animal which
was a cross between a greyhound and a foxhound,
and two others that were crosses between a grey-
hound and a wire-haired Scotch deer-hound. Old
man Prindle 's contribution to the pack consisted
of two immense brindled mongrels of great strength
and ferocious temper. They were unlike any dogs
I have ever seen in this country. Their mother
herself was a cross between a bull mastiff and a
Newfoundland, while the father was described as
being a big dog that belonged to a " Dutch Count."

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 207

The *' Dutch Count " was an outcast German noble,
who had drifted to the West, and, after failing in
the mines and failing in the cattle country, had
died in a squalid log shanty while striving to eke
out an existence as a hunter among the foothills.
His dog, I presume, from the description given me,
must have been a boar-hound or Ulm dog.

As I was very anxious to see a wolf -hunt, the
Judge volunteered to get one up, and asked old
man Prindle to assist, for the sake of his two big
fighting dogs ; though the very names of the latter.
General Grant and Old Abe, were gall and worm-
wood to the unreconstructed soul of the Judge.
Still they were the only dogs anywhere around
capable of tackling a savage timber wolf, and
without their aid the Judge's own high-spirited
animals ran a serious risk of injury, for they were
altogether too game to let any beast escape with-
out a struggle.

Luck favored us. Two wolves had killed a calf
and dragged it into a long patch of dense brush
where there was a little spring, the whole furnish-
ing admirable cover for any wild beast. Early in
the morning we started on horseback for this bit of
cover, which was some three miles off. The party
consisted of the Judge, old man Prindle, a cowboy,
myself, and the dogs. The Judge and I carried
our rifles and the cowboy his revolver, but old
man Prindle had nothing but a heavy whip, for he

2o8 The Wilderness Hunter

swore, with many oaths, that no one should inter-
fere with his big dogs, for by themselves they
would surely ''make the wolf feel sicker than a
stuck hog." Our shaggy ponies racked along at a
five-mile gait over the dewy prairie grass. The
two big dogs trotted behind their master, grim and
ferocious. The track-hounds were tied in couples,
and the beautiful greyhounds loped lightly and
gracefully alongside the horses. The country was
fine. A mile to our right a small plains river
wound in long curves between banks fringed with
cottonwoods. Two or three miles to our left the
foothills rose sheer and bare, with clumps of black
pine and cedar in their gorges. We rode over
gently rolling prairie, with here and there patches
of brush at the bottoms of the slopes around the
dry watercourses.

At last we reached a somewhat deeper valley,
in which the wolves were harbored. Wolves lie
close in the daytime and will not leave cover if
they can help it ; and as they had both food and
water within we knew it was most unlikely that
this couple would be gone. The valley was a
couple of hundred yards broad and three or four
times as long, filled with a growth of ash and
dwarf elm and cedar, thorny underbrush choking
the spaces between. Posting the cowboy, to
whom he gave his rifle, with two greyhounds on
one side of the upper end, and old man Prindle

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 209

with two others on the opposite side, while I was
left at the lower end to guard against the possibil-
ity of the wolves breaking back, the Judge himself
rode into the thicket near me and loosened the
track-hounds to let them find the wolves' trail.
The big dogs also were uncoupled and allowed to
go in with the hounds. Their power of scent was
very poor, but they were sure to be guided aright
by the baying of the hounds, and their presence
would give confidence to the latter and make
them ready to rout the wolves out of the thicket,
which they would probably have shrunk from
doing alone. There was a moment's pause of ex-
pectation after the Judge entered the thicket with
his hounds. We sat motionless on our horses,
eagerly looking through the keen fresh morning
air. Then a clamorous baying from the thicket
in which both the horseman and dogs had disap-
peared showed that the hounds had struck the
trail of their quarry and were running on a hot
scent. For a couple of minutes we could not
be quite certain which way the game was going
to break. The hounds ran zigzag through the
brush, as we could tell by their baying, and once
some yelping and a great row showed that they
had come rather closer than they had expected
upon at least one of the wolves.

In another minute, however, the latter found it
too hot for them and bolted from the thicket. My

VOL. II. — 14.

2IO The Wilderness Hunter

first notice of this was seeing the cowboy, who was
standing by the side of his horse, suddenly throw
up his rifle and fire, while the greyhounds, who
had been springing high in the air, half -maddened
by the clamor in the thicket below, for a moment
dashed off the wrong way, confused by the report
of the gun. I rode for all I was worth to where
the cowboy stood, and instantly caught a glimpse
of two wolves, grizzled-gray and brown, which,
having been turned by his shot, had started straight
over the hill across the plain toward the moun-
tains three miles away. As soon as I saw them I
saw also that the rearmost of the couple had been
hit somewhere in the body and was lagging be-
hind, the blood running from its flanks, while the
two greyhounds were racing after it; and at the
same moment the track-hounds and the big dogs
burst out of the thicket, yelling savagely as they
struck the bloody trail. The wolf was hard hit,
and staggered as he ran. He did not have a hun-
dred yards' start of the dogs, and in less than a
minute one of the greyhounds ranged up and
passed him with a savage snap that brought him
to; and before he could recover the whole pack
rushed at him. Weakened as he was he could
make no effective fight against so many foes, and
indeed had a chance for but one or two rapid snaps
before he was thrown down and completely cov-
ered by the bodies of his enemies. Yet with one

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 211

of these snaps he did damage, as a shrill yell told,
and in a second an over-rash track-hound came
out of the struggle with a deep gash across his
shoulders. The worrying, growling, and snarling
were terrific, but in a minute the heaving mass
grew motionless and the dogs drew off, save one or
two that still continued to worry the dead wolf as
it lay stark and stiff with glazed eyes and rumpled
fur.

No sooner were we satisfied that it was dead
than the Judge, with cheers and oaths, and crack-
ings of his whip, urged the dogs after the other
wolf. The two greyhounds that had been with
old man Prindle had fortunately not been able to
see the wolves when they first broke from the
cover, and never saw the wounded wolf at all,
starting off at full speed after the un wounded one
the instant he topped the crest of the hill. He had
taken advantage of a slight hollow and turned, and
now the chase was crossing us half a mile away.
With whip and spur we flew towards them, our
two greyhounds stretching out in front, and
leaving us as if we were standing still, the track-
hounds and big dogs running after them just
ahead of the horses. Fortunately, the wolf
plunged for a moment into a little brushy hollow
and again doubled back, and this gave us a chance
to see the end of the chase from nearby. The two
greyhounds which had first taken up the pursuit

212 The Wilderness Hunter

were then but a short distance behind. Nearer
they crept until they were within ten yards, and
then with a tremendous race the Httle bitch ran
past him and inflicted a vicious bite in the big
beast's ham. He whirled around like a top and
his jaws clashed like those of a sprung bear-trap,
but quick though he was she was quicker and just
cleared his savage rush. In another moment he
resumed his flight at full speed, a speed which
only that of the greyhounds exceeded ; but almost
immediately the second greyhound ranged along-
side, and though he was not able to bite, because
the wolf kept running with its head turned around
threatening him, yet by his feints he delayed the
beast's flight so that in a moment or two the re-
maining couple of swift hounds arrived on the
scene. For a moment the wolf and all four dogs
galloped along in a bunch ; then one of the grey-
hounds, watching his chance, pinned the beast
cleverly by the hock and threw him completely
over. The others jumped on it in an instant ; but
rising by main strength the wolf shook himself
free, catching one dog by the ear and tearing it
half off. Then he sat down on his haunches and
the greyhounds ranged themselves around him
some twenty yards off, forming a ring which for-
bade his retreat, though they themselves did not
dare touch him. However the end was at hand.
In another moment Old Abe and General Grant

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 213

came running up at headlong speed and smashed
into the wolf like a couple of battering-rams. He
rose on his hind legs like a wrestler as they came at
him, the greyhounds also rising and bouncing up
and down like rubber balls. I could just see the
wolf and the first big dog locked together, as the
second one made good his throat-hold. In an-
other moment over all three tumbled, while the
greyhounds and one or two of the track-hounds
jumped in to take part in the killing. The big
dogs more than occupied the wolf's attention and
took all the punishing, while in a trice one of the
greyhounds, having seized him by the hind leg,
stretched him out, and the others were biting his
undefended belly. The snarling and yelling of
the worry made a noise so fiendish that it was
fairly bloodcurdling; then it gradually died down,
and the second wolf lay limp on the plain, killed
by the dogs unassisted. This wolf was rather
heavier and decidedly taller than either of the
big dogs, with more sinewy feet and longer
fangs.

I have several times seen wolves run down and
stopped by greyhounds after a breakneck gallop
and a wildly exciting finish, but this was the only
occasion on which I ever saw the dogs kill a big,
full-grown he- wolf unaided. Nevertheless various
friends of mine own packs that have performed
the feat again and again. One pack, formerly

214 The Wilderness Hunter

kept at Fort Benton, until wolves in that neigh-
borhood became scarce, had nearly seventy-five
to its credit, most of them killed without any
assistance from the hunter; killed, moreover, by
the greyhounds alone, there being no other dogs
with the pack. These greyhounds were trained to
the throat-hold, and did their own killing in fine
style; usually six or eight were slipped together.
General Miles informs me that he once had great
fun in the Indian Territory hunting wolves with a
pack of greyhounds. They had with the pack a
large stub-tailed mongrel, of doubtful ancestry
but most undoubted fighting capacity. When the
wolf was started the greyhounds were sure to over-
take it in a mile or two ; they would then bring it
to a halt and stand around it in a ring until the
fighting dog came up. The latter promptly tum-
bled on the wolf, grabbing him anywhere, and
often getting a terrific wound himself at the same
time. As soon as he had seized the wolf and was
rolling over with him in the grapple, the other
dogs joined in the fray and dispatched the quarry
without much danger to themselves.

During the last decade many ranchmen in Colo-
rado, Wyoming, and Montana have developed
packs of greyhounds able to kill a wolf unassisted.
Greyhounds trained for this purpose always seize
by the throat ; and the light dogs used for coursing
jack-rabbits are not of much service; smooth or

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 215

rough-haired greyhounds and deerhounds stand-
ing over thirty inches at the shoulder and weigh-
ing over ninety pounds being the only ones that,
together with speed, courage, and endurance, pos-
sess the requisite power.

One of the most famous packs in the West was
that of the Sun River Hound Club, in Montana,
started by the stockmen of Sun River to get rid
of the curse of wolves which infested the neigh-
borhood and worked very serious damage to the
herds and flocks. The pack was composed of both
greyhounds and deerhounds, the best being from
the kennels of Colonel Williams and of Mr. Van
Hummel, of Denver; they were handled by an
old plainsman and veteran wolf-hunter named
Porter. In the season of '86 the astonishing num-
be of 146 wolves were killed with these dogs. Or-
dinarily, as soon as the dogs seized a wolf, and
threw or held it. Porter rushed in and stabbed it
with his hunting-knife; one day, when out with
six hounds, he thus killed no less than twelve out
of the fifteen wolves started, though one of the
greyhounds was killed, and all the others were cut
and exhausted. But often the wolves were killed
without his aid. The first time the two biggest
hounds — deerhounds or wire-haired greyhounds —
were tried, when they had been at the ranch only
three days, they performed such a feat. A large
wolf had killed and partially eaten a sheep in a

2i6 The Wilderness Hunter

corral close to the ranch-house, and Porter started
on the trail, and followed him at a jog-trot nearly
ten miles before the hounds sighted him. Run-
ning but a few rods, he turned viciously to bay,
and the two great greyhounds struck him like
stones hurled from a catapult, throwing him as
they fastened on his throat ; they held him down
and strangled him before he could rise, two other
hounds getting up just in time to help at the end
of the worry.

Ordinarily, however, no two greyhounds or deer-
hounds are a match for a gray wolf, but I have
known of several instances in Colorado, Wyoming,
and Montana, in which three strong veterans have
killed one. The feat can only be performed by
big dogs of the highest courage, who all act to-
gether, rush in at top speed, and seize by the
throat ; for the strength of the quarry is such that
otherwise he will shake off the dogs, and then
speedily kill them by rabid snaps with his terribly
armed jaws. Where possible, half a dozen dogs
should be slipped at once, to minimize the risk of
injury to the pack; unless this is done, and unless
the hunter helps the dogs in the worry, accidents
will be frequent, and an occasional wolf will be
found able to beat off, maiming or killing, a lesser
number of assailants. Some hunters prefer the
smooth greyhound, because of its great speed, and
others the wire-coated animal, the rough deer-

Wolves and Wolf-Hounds 217

hound, because of its superior strength; both, if of
the right kind, are dauntless fighters.

Colonel Williams's greyhounds have performed
many noble feats in wolf -hunting. He spent the
winter of 1875 in the Black Hills, which at that
time did not contain a single settler, and fairly
swarmed with game. Wolves were especially nu-
merous and very bold and fierce, so that the dogs
of the party were continually in jeopardy of their
lives. On the other hand, they took an ample
vengeance, for many wolves were caught by the
pack. Whenever possible, the horsemen kept close
enough to take an immediate hand in the fight, if
the quarry was a full-grown wolf, and thus save
the dogs from the terrible punishment they were
otherwise certain to receive. The dogs invariably
throttled, rushing straight at the throat, but the
wounds they themselves received were generally
in the flank or belly; in several instances these
wounds resulted fatally. Once or twice a wolf was
caught, and held by two greyhounds until the
horsemen came up ; but it took at least five dogs
to overcome and slay unaided a big timber wolf.
Several times the feat was performed by a party of
five, consisting of two greyhounds, one rough-
coated deer-hound, and two cross-bloods; and
once by a litter of seven young greyhounds, not
yet come to their full strength.

Once or twice the so-called Russian wolf-hounds

2i8 The Wilderness Hunter

or silky-coated greyhounds, the "borzois," have
been imported and tried in wolf -hunting on the
western plains ; but hitherto they have not shown
themselves equal, at either running or fighting,
to the big American-bred greyhounds of the type
produced by Colonel Williams and certain others
of our best western breeders. Indeed, I have
never known any foreign greyhounds, whether
Scotch, English, or from continental Europe, to
perform such feats of courage, endurance, and
strength, in chasing and killing dangerous game,
as the homebred greyhounds of Colonel Williams.

CHAPTER IX

IN COWBOY LAND

OUT on the frontier, and generally among
those who spend their lives in, or on the
borders of, the wilderness, life is reduced
to its elemental conditions. The passions and
emotions of these grim hunters of the mountains
and wild rough riders of the plains, are simpler and
stronger than those of people dwelling in more
complicated states of society. As soon as the
communities become settled and begin to grow
with any rapidity, the American instinct for law
asserts itself; but in the earlier stages each indi-
vidual is obliged to be a law to himself and to
guard his rights with a strong hand. Of course,
the transition periods are full of incongruities.
Men have not yet adjusted their relations to moral-
ity and law with any niceness. They hold strongly
by certain rude virtues, and on the other hand
they quite fail to recognize even as shortcomings
not a few traits that obtain scant mercy in older
communities. Many of the desperadoes, the man-
killers, and road-agents have good sides to their
characters. Often they are people who, in certain

219

220 The Wilderness Hunter

stages of civilization, do, or have done, good work,
but who, when these stages have passed, find
themselves surrounded by conditions which ac-
centuate their worst qualities, and make their
best qualities useless. The average desperado,
for instance, has, after all, much the same stand-
ard of morals that the Norman nobles had in the
days of the battle of Hastings, and, ethically and
morally, he is decidedly in advance of the vikings,
who were the ancestors of these same nobles — and
to whom, by the way, he himself could doubtless
trace a portion of his blood. If the transition
from the wild lawlessness of life in the wilderness
or on the border to a higher civilization were
stretched out over a term of centuries, he and his
descendants would doubtless accommodate them-
selves by degrees to the changing circumstances.
But unfortunately in the far West the transition
takes place with marvellous abruptness, and at an
altogether unheard-of speed, and many a man's
nature is unable to change with sufficient rapidity
to allow him to harmonize with his environment.
In consequence, unless he leaves for still wilder
lands, he ends by getting hung instead of founding
a family which would revere his name as that of a
very capable, although not in all respects a con-
ventionally moral, ancestor.

Most of the men with whom I was intimately
thrown during my life on the frontier and in the

In Cowboy Land 221

wilderness were good fellows — hardworking, brave,
resolute, and truthful. At times, of course, they
were forced of necessity to do deeds which would
seem startling to dwellers in cities and in old
settled places; and though they waged a very
stern and relentless warfare upon evil-doers whose
misdeeds had immediate and tangible bad results,
they showed a wide toleration of all save the most
extreme classes of wrong, and were not given to
inquiring too curiously into a strong man's past,
or to criticising him over-harshly for a failure to
discriminate in finer ethical questions. Moreover,
not a few of the men with whom I came in contact
— with some of whom my relations were very
close and friendly — had at different times led
rather tough careers. This fact was accepted by
them and by their companions as a fact, and
nothing more. There were certain offences, such
as rape, the robbery of a friend, or murder under
circumstances of cowardice and treachery, which
were never forgiven; but the fact that when the
country was wild a young fellow had gone on the
road — that is, become a highwayman, or had been
chief of a gang of desperadoes, horse-thieves, and
cattle-killers, was scarcely held to weigh against
him, being treated as a regrettable, but certainly
not shameful, trait of youth. He was regarded
by his neighbors with the same kindly tolerance
which respectable mediaeval Scotch borderers

222 The Wilderness Hunter

doubtless extended to their wilder young men
who would persist in raiding English cattle even
in time of peace.

Of course, if these men were asked outright as to
their stories they would have refused to tell them,
or else would have lied about them; but when
they had grown to regard a man as a friend and
companion they would often recount various in-
cidents of their past lives with perfect frankness,
and as they combined in a very curious degree
both a decided sense of humor, and a failure to
appreciate that there was anything especially re-
markable in what they related, their tales were
always entertaining.

Early one spring, now nearly ten years ago, I
was out hunting some lost horses. They had
strayed from the range three months before, and
we had in a roundabout way heard that they were
ranging near some broken country, where a man
named Brophy had a ranch, nearly fifty miles
from my own. When I started thither the
weather was warm, but the second day out it grew
colder and a heavy snow-storm came on. Fortu-
nately I was able to reach the ranch all right,
finding there one of the sons of a Little Beaver
ranchman, and a young cow-puncher belonging to
a Texas outfit, whom I knew very well. After
putting my horse into the corral and throwing him
down some hay I strode into the low hut, made

In Cowboy Land 223

partly of turf and partly of cottonwood logs, and
speedily warmed myself before the fire. We had
a good warm supper, of bread, potatoes, fried
venison, and tea. My two companions grew very
sociable and began to talk freely over their pipes.
There were two bunks, one above the other. I
climbed into the upper, leaving my friends, who
occupied the lower, sitting together on a bench
recounting different incidents in the careers of
themselves and their cronies during the winter
that had just passed. Soon one of them asked the
other what had become of a certain horse, a noted
cutting pony, which I had myself noticed the pre-
ceding fall. The question aroused the other to
the memory of a wrong which still rankled, and he
began (I alter one or two of the proper names) :

" Why, that was the pony that got stole. I had
been workin' him on rough ground when I was
out with the Three Bar outfit and he went tender
forward, so I turned him loose by the Lazy B
ranch, and when I come back to git him there
was n't anybody at the ranch and I could n't find
him. The sheep-man who lives about two miles
west, under Red Clay butte, told me he seen a
fellow in a wolfskin coat, ridin' a pinto bronco,
with white eyes, leadin' that pony of mine just
two days before ; and I hunted round till I hit his
trail, and then I followed to where I 'd reckoned
he was headin* for — the Short Pine Hills. When

224 The Wilderness Hunter

I got there a rancher told me he had seen the man
pass on towards Cedartown, and sure enough
when I struck Cedartown I found he Hved there in
a 'dobe house, just outside the town. There was a
boom on the town and it looked pretty slick.
There was two hotels and I went into the first,
and I says, 'Where 's the justice of the peace?'
says I to the bartender.

*'* There ain't no justice of the peace,' says he;
'the justice of the peace got shot.'

'"Well, where 's the constable?' says I.

" ' Why, it was him that shot the justice of the
peace ! ' says he ; ' he 's skipped the country with a
bunch of horses.'

"'Well, ain't there no officer of the law left in
this town?' says I.

" ' Why, of course,' says he, * there 's a probate
judge ; he is over tendin' bar at the Last Chance
Hotel.'

" So I went over to the Last Chance Hotel, and
I walked in there. 'Mornin',' says I.

"'Mornin',' says he.

" ' You 're the probate judge?' says I.

" ' That 's what I am,' says he. ' What do you
want?' says he.

" ' I want justice,' says I.

"'What kind of justice do you want?' says he.
'What 'sit for?'

*" It's for stealin' a horse,' says L

In Cowboy Land 225

•*'Then by God you '11 git it,' says he. 'Who
stole the horse?' says he.

"*It is a man that lives in a 'dobe house, just
outside the town there,' says I.

'' ' Well, where do you come from yourself? ' said
he.

'"From Medory,' said I.

"With that he lost interest and settled kind o'
back, and says he, 'There won't no Cedartown
jury hang a Cedartown man for stealin' a Medory
man's horse,' said he.

'"Well, what am I to do about my horse?'
says I.

"'Do?' says he; 'well, you know where the
man lives, don't you?' says he; 'then sit up out-
side his house to-night and shoot him when
he comes in,' says he, 'and skip out with the
horse.'

'"All right,' says I, ' that is what I '11 do,' and I
walked off.

" So I went off to his house, and I laid down be-
hind some sage-brushes to wait for him. He was
not at home, but I could see his wife movin' about
inside now and then, and I waited and waited, and
it growed darker, and I begun to say to myself,
'Now here you are lyin' out to shoot this man
when he comes home ; and it 's gettin' dark, and
you don't know him, and if you do shoot the next
man that comes into that house, like as not it

VOL. II. — 15.

226 The Wilderness Hunter

won't be the fellow you're after at all, but some
perfectly innocent man a-comin' there after the
other man's wife!'

*' So I up and saddled the bronc' and lit out for
home," concluded the narrator with the air of one
justly proud of his own self -abnegating virtue.

The "town" where the judge above-mentioned
dwelt was one of those squalid, pretentiously
named little clusters of make-shift dwellings which
on the edge of the wild country spring up with the
rapid growth of mushrooms, and are often no
longer lived. In their earlier stages these towns
are frequently built entirely of canvas, and are
subject to grotesque calamities. When the terri-
tory purchased from the Sioux, in the Dakotas, a
couple of years ago, was thrown open to settle-
ment, there was a furious inrush of men on horse-
back and in wagons, and various ambitious cities
sprang up overnight. The new settlers were all
under the influence of that curious craze which
causes every true westerner to put unlimited faith
in the unknown and untried; many had left all
they had in a far better farming country, because
they were true to their immemorial belief that,
wherever they were, their luck would be better if
they went somewhere else. They were always on
the move, and headed for the vague beyond. As
miners see visions of all the famous mines of his-
tory in each new camp, so these would-be city

In Cowboy Land 227

founders saw future St. Pauls and Omahas in
every forlorn group of tents pitched by some
muddy stream in a desert of gumbo and sage-
brush; and they named both the towns and the
canvas buildings in accordance with their bright
hopes for the morrow, rather than with reference
to the mean facts of the day. One of these towns,
which when twenty-four hours old boasted of six
saloons, a ** court-house," and an "opera house,"
was overwhelmed by early disaster. The third
day of its life a whirlwind came along and took off
the opera house and half the saloons ; and the fol-
lowing evening lawless men nearly finished the
work of the elements. The riders of a huge trail-
outfit from Texas, to their glad surprise, discovered
the town, and abandoned themselves to a night of
roaring and lethal carousal. Next morning the
city authorities were lamenting with oaths of bit-
ter rage, that ''them hell-and-twenty Flying A
cow-punchers had cut the court-house up into
pants." It was true. The cowboys were in need
of shaps, and with an admirable mixture of ad-
venturousness, frugality, and ready adaptability
to circumstances, had made substitutes therefor in
the shape of canvas overalls, cut from the roof and
walls of the shaky temple of justice.

One of my valued friends in the mountains, and
one of the best hunters with whom I ever travelled^
was a man who had a peculiarly light-hearted

228 The Wilderness Hunter

way of looking at conventional social obligations.
Though in some ways a true backwoods Dona-
tello, he was a man of much shrewdness and of
great courage and resolution. Moreover, he pos-
sessed what only a few men do possess, the capac-
ity to tell the truth. He saw facts as they were,
and could tell them as they were, and he never
told an untruth unless for very weighty reasons.
He was pre-eminently a philosopher, of a happy,
sceptical turn of mind. He had no prejudices.
He never looked down, as so many hard characters
do, upon a person possessing a different code of
ethics. His attitude was one of broad, genial tol-
erance. He saw nothing out of the way in the
fact that he had himself been a road-agent, a pro-
fessional gambler, and a desperado at different
stages of his career. On the other hand, he did
not in the least hold it against any one that he had
always acted within the law. At the time that I
knew him he had become a man of some sub-
stance, and naturally a staunch upholder of the
existing order of things. But while he never
boasted of his past deeds, he never apologized for
them, and evidently would have been quite as in-
capable of understanding that they needed an
apology as he would have been incapable of being
guilty of mere vulgar boastfulness. He did not
often allude to his past career at all. When he
did, he recited its incidents perfectly naturally and

In Cowboy Land 229

simply, as events, without any reference to or re-
gard for their ethical significance. It was this
quality which made him at times a specially
pleasant companion, and always an agreeable
narrator. The point of his story, or what seemed
to him the point, was rarely that which struck me.
It was the incidental sidelights the story' threw
upon his own nature and the somewhat lurid sur-
roundings amid which he had moved.

On one occasion when we were out together we
killed a bear, and after skinning it, took a bath in a
lake. I noticed he had a scar on the side of his
foot and asked him how he got it, to which he re-
sponded, with indifference :

"Oh, that? Why, a man shootin' at me to
make me dance, that was all."

I expressed some curiosity in the matter, and he
went on :

''Well, the way of it was this: It was when I
was keeping a saloon in New Mexico, and there was
a man there by the name of Fowler, and there was
a reward on him of three thousand dollars "

" Put on him by the State?"

" No, put on by his wife," said my friend ; " and
there was this "

" Hold on," I interrupted; " put on by his wife,
did you say?"

"Yes, by his wife. Him and her had been
keepin' a faro bank, you see, and they quarrelled

230 The Wilderness Hunter

about it, so she just put a reward on him, and
so "

" Excuse me," I said, "but do you mean to say
that this reward was put on publicly?" to which
my friend answered, with an air of gentlemanly
boredom at being interrupted to gratify my thirst
for irrelevant detail :

''Oh, no, not publicly. She just mentioned it
to six or eight intimate personal friends."

"Go on," I responded, somewhat overcome by
this instance of the primitive simplicity with
which New Mexican matrimonial disputes were
managed, and he continued :

" Well, two men come ridin' in to see me to bor-
row my guns. My guns was Colt's self-cockers.
It was a new thing then, and they was the only
ones in town. These come to me, and ' Simpson,'
says they, ' we want to borrow your guns ; we are
goin' to kill Fowler.'

" ' Hold on for a moment,' said I, ' I am willin'
to lend you them guns, but I ain't goin' to know
what you 'r' goin' to do with them, no sir; but of
course you can have the guns. ' ' ' Here my friend's
face lightened pleasantly, and he continued:

"Well, you may easily believe I felt surprised
next day when Fowler come ridin' in, and, says
he, ' Simpson, here 's your guns ! ' He had shot
them two men ! ' Well, Fowler, ' says I, ' if I had
known them men was after you, I'd never have

In Cowboy Land 231

let them have them guns, nohow,' says I. That
was n't true, for I did know it, but there was no
cause to tell him that." I murmured my ap-
proval of such prudence, and Simpson continued,
his eyes gradually brightening with the light of
agreeable reminiscence :

"Well, they up and the}^ took Fowler before
the justice of the peace. The justice of the peace
was a Turk."

"Now, Simpson, what do you mean by that?"
I interrupted :

"Well, he come from Turkey," said Simpson,
and I again sank back, wondering briefly what
particular variety of Mediterranean outcast had
drifted down to New Mexico to be made a justice
of the peace. Simpson laughed and continued :

"That Fowler was a funny fellow. The Turk,
he committed Fowler, and Fowler, he riz up and
knocked him down and tromped all over him and
made him let him go!"

"That was an appeal to a higher law," I ob-
served. Simpson assented cheerily, and con-
tinued :

"Well, that Turk, he got nervous for fear
Fowler he was goin' to kill him, and so he comes
to me and offers me twenty-five dollars a day to
protect him from Fowler; and I went to Fowler,
and 'Fowler,' says I, 'that Turk's offered me
twenty-five dollars a day to protect him from you.

232 The Wilderness Hunter

Now, I ain't goin' to get shot for no twenty-five
dollars a day, and if you are goin' to kill the Turk,
just say so and go and do it ; but if you ain't goin'
to kill the Turk, there 's no reason why I should n't
earn that twenty-five dollars a day ! ' and Fowler,
says he, * I ain't goin' to touch the Turk; you just
go right ahead and protect him.'"

So Simpson ** protected" the Turk from the im-
aginary danger of Fowler for about a week, at
twenty-five dollars a day. Then one evening he
happened to go out and met Fowler, "and," said
he, ** the moment I saw him I knowed he felt mean,
for he begun to shoot at my feet," which certainly
did seem to offer presumptive evidence of mean-
ness. Simpson continued:

" I did n't have no gun, so I just had to stand
there and take it until something distracted his
attention, and I went off home to get my gun and
kill him, but I wanted to do it perfectly lawful ; so
I went up to the mayor (he was play in' poker with
one of the judges), and says I to him, * Mr. Mayor,'
says I, *I am goin' to shoot Fowler.' And the
mayor he riz out of his chair and he took me by
the hand, and says he, ' Mr. Simpson, if you do I
will stand by you' ; and the judge, he says, ' I '11
go on your bond.'"

Fortified by this cordial approval of the execu-
tive and judicial branches of the government, Mr.
Simpson started on his quest. Meanwhile, how-

In Cowboy Land 233

ever, Fowler had cut up another prominent citizen,
and they already had him in jail. The friends of
law and order feeling some little distrust as to the
permanency of their own zeal for righteousness,
thought it best to settle the matter before there
was time for cooling, and accordingly, headed by
Simpson, the mayor, the judge, the Turk, and
other prominent citizens of the town, they broke
into the jail and hanged Fowler. The point in the
hanging which especially tickled my friend's fancy,
as he lingered over the reminiscence, was one that
was rather too ghastly to appeal to my own sense
of humor. In the Turk's mind there still rankled
the memory of Fowler's very unprofessional con-
duct while figuring before him as a criminal. Said
Simpson, with a merry twinkle of the eye: *'Do
you know that Turk, he was a right funny fellow,
too, after all. Just as the boys were going to string
up Fowler, says he, ' Boys, stop ; one moment,
gentlemen, — Mr. Fowler, good-by,' and he blew a
kiss to him!"

In the cow country, and elsewhere on the wild
borderland between savagery and civilization, men
go quite as often by nicknames as by those to
which they are lawfully entitled. Half the cow-
boys and hunters of my acquaintance are known
by names entirely unconnected with those they
inherited or received when they were chris-
tened. Occasionally, some would-be desperado or

234 The Wilderness Hunter

make-believe mighty hunter tries to adopt what he
deems a title suitable to his prowess ; but such an
effort is never attempted in really wild places,
where it would be greeted with huge derision ; for
all of these names that are genuine are bestowed
by outsiders, with small regard to the wishes of the
person named. Ordinarily, the name refers to
some easily recognizable accident of origin, occupa-
tion, or aspect ; as witness the innumerable Dutch-
eys, Frencheys, Kentucks, Texas Jacks, Bronco
Bills, Bear Joes, Buckskins, Red Jims, and the like.
Sometimes it is apparently meaningless; one of
my cow-puncher friends is always called " Sliver"
or ** Splinter" — why, I have no idea. At other
times some particular incident may give rise to
the title : a clean-looking cowboy formerly in my
employ was always known as ''Muddy Bill," be-
cause he had once been bucked off his horse into a
mud hole.

The grewsome genesis of one such name is given
in the following letter which I have just received
from an old hunting-friend in the Rockies, who
took a kindly interest in a frontier cabin which the
Boone and Crockett Club was putting up at the
Chicago World's Fair :

"Feb 1 6th 1893; Der Sir: I see in the news-
papers that your club the Daniel Boon and Davey
Crockit you Intend to erect a f runtier Cabin at the

In Cowboy Land 235

world's Far at Chicago to represent the erley
Pianears of our country I would like to see you
maik a success I have all my life been a fruntiers-
man and feel interested in your undertaking and
I hoap you wile get a good assortment of relicks I
want to maik one suggestion to you that is in re-
gard to geting a good man and a genuine Maun-
tanner to take charg of your haus at Chicago I
want to recommend a man for you to get it is
Liver-eating Johnson that is the naim he is gener-
ally called he is an olde mauntneer and large and
fine looking and one of the Best Story Tellers in
the country and Very Polight genteel to every one
he meets I wil tel you how he got that naim Liver-
eating in a hard Fight with the Black Feet Indians
thay Faught all day Johnson and a Few Whites
Faught a large Body of Indians all day after the
fight Johnson cam in contact with a wounded In-
dian and Johnson was aut of ammunition and
thay faught it out with thar Knives and Johnson
got away with the Indian and in the fight cut the
livver out of the Indian and said to the Boys did
thay want any Liver to eat that is the way he got
the naim of Liver-eating Johnson

"Yours truly" etc., etc.

Frontiersmen are often as original in their the-
ories of life as in their names ; and the originality
may take the form of wild savagery, of mere

236 The Wilderness Hunter

uncouthness, or of an odd combination of genuine
humor with simple acceptance of facts as they are.
On one occasion I expressed some surprise at
learning that a certain Mrs. P. had suddenly mar-
ried, though her husband was alive and in jail in a
neighboring town ; and received for answer : " Well,
you see, old man Pete he skipped the coimtry, and
left his widow behind him, and so Bob Evans he
up and married her!" — which was evidently felt
to be a proceeding requiring no explanation what-
ever.

In the cow country there is nothing more re-
freshing than the light-hearted belief entertained
by the average man to the effect that any animal
which by main force has been saddled and ridden,
or harnessed and driven a couple of times, is a
''broke horse." My present foreman is firmly
wedded to this idea, as well as to its complement,
the belief that any animal with hoofs, before any
vehicle with wheels, can be driven across any
country. One summer on reaching the ranch I
was entertained with the usual accounts of the
adventures and misadventures which had befallen
my own men and my neighbors since I had been
out last. In the course of the conversation my
foreman remarked: "We had a great time out
here about six weeks ago. There was a professor
from Ann Arbor came out with his wife to see the
Bad Lands, and they asked if we could rig them

In Cowboy Land 237

up a team, and we said we guessed we could, and
Foley's boy and I did; but it ran away with him
and broke his leg ! He was here for a month. I
guess he did n't mind it, though." Of this I was
less certain, forlorn little Medora being a '* busted"
cow-town, concerning which I once heard another
of my men remark, in reply to an inq-uisitive com-
mercial traveller: '* How many people lives here?
Eleven — counting the chickens — when they 're all
in town!"

My foreman continued : "By George, there was
something that professor said afterwards that
made me feel hot. I sent word up to him by
Foley's boy that seein' as how it had come out we
would n't charge him nothin' for the rig ; and that
professor he answered that he was glad we were
showing him some sign of consideration, for he 'd
begun to believe he 'd fallen into a den of sharks,
and that we gave him a runaway team a purpose.
That made me hot, calling that a runaway team.
Why, there was one of them horses never could
have run away before ; it had n't never been druv
but twice! and the other horse maybe had run
away a few times, but there was lots of times he
had nH run away. I esteemed that team full as
liable not to run away as it was to run away," con-
cluded my foreman, evidently deeming this as
good a warranty of gentleness as the most exact-
ing could require.

238 The Wilderness Hunter

The definition of good behavior on the frontier
is even more elastic for a saddle-horse than for a
team. Last spring one of the Three-Seven riders,
a magnificent horseman, was killed on the round-
up near Belfield, his horse bucking and falling on
him. ''It was accounted a plumb gentle horse,
too," said my informant, ''only it sometimes
sulked and acted a little mean when it was cinched
up behind." The unfortunate rider did not know
of this failing of the " plumb gentle horse," and as
soon as he was in the saddle it threw itself over
sideways with a great bound, and he fell on his
head, and never spoke again.

Such accidents are too common in the wild
country to attract very much attention ; the men
accept them with grim quiet, as inevitable in such
lives as theirs — lives that are harsh and narrow in
their toil and their pleasure alike, and that are
ever-bounded by an iron horizon of hazard and
hardship. During the last year and a half three
other men from the ranches in my immediate
neighborhood have met their deaths in the course
of their work. One, a trail boss of the O X, was
drowned while swimming his herd across a swollen
river. Another, one of the fancy ropers of the W
Bar, was killed while roping cattle in a corral ; his
saddle turned, the rope twisted round him, he was
pulled off, and was trampled to death by his own
horse.

In Cowboy Land 239

The fourth man, a cow-puncher named Hamil-
ton, lost his life during the last week of October,
1 89 1, in the first heavy snow-storm of the season.
Yet he was a skilled plainsman, on ground he knew
well, and, just before straying himself, he success-
fully instructed two men who did not know the
country how to get to camp. They were all three
with . the round-up, and were making a circle
through the Bad Lands ; the wagons had camped
on the eastern edge of these Bad Lands, where
they merged into the prairie, at the head of an old
disused road, which led about due east from the
Little Missouri. It was a gray, lowering day, and
as darkness came on Hamilton's horse played out,
and he told his two companions not to wait, as it
had begun to snow, but to keep on towards the
north, skirting some particularly rough buttes,
and as soon as they struck the road to turn to the
right and follow it out to the prairie, where they
would find camp; he particularly warned them
to keep a sharp lookout, so as not to pass over
the dim trail unawares in the dusk and the storm.
They followed his advice, and reached camp
safely; and after they had left him nobody ever
again saw him alive. Evidently he himself, plod-
ding northwards, passed over the road without
seeing it in the gathering gloom; probably he
struck it at some point where the ground was bad,
and the dim trail in consequence disappeared

240 The Wilderness Hunter

entirely, as is the way with these prairie roads —
making them landmarks to be used with caution.
He must then have walked on and on, over rugged
hills and across deep ravines, until his horse came
to a standstill ; he took off its saddle and picketed
it to a dwarfed ash. Its frozen carcass was found
with the saddle near by, two months later. He
now evidently recognized some landmark, and
realized that he had passed the road, and was far
to the north of the round-up wagons ; but he was
a resolute, self-confident man, and he determined
to strike out for a line camp, which he knew lay
about due east of him, two or three miles out on
the prairie, on one of the head branches of Knife
River. Night must have fallen by this time, and
he missed the camp, probably passing it within less
than a mile; but he did pass it, and with it all
hopes of life, and walked wearily on to his doom,
through the thick darkness and the driving snow.
At last his strength failed, and he lay down in the
tall grass of a little hollow. Five months later, in
the early spring, the riders from the line camp
found his body, resting face downwards, with the
forehead on the folded arms.

Accidents of less degree are common. Men
break their collar-bones, arms, or legs by falling
when riding at speed over dangerous ground, when
cutting cattle or trying to control a stampeded
herd, or by being thrown or rolled on by bucking

In Cowboy Land 241

or rearing horses ; or their horses, and on rare oc-
casions even they themselves, are gored by fight-
ing steers. Death by storm or in flood, death in
striving to master a wild and vicious horse, or in
handling maddened cattle, and too often death
in brutal conflict with one of his own fellows —
any one of these is the not imnatural end of
the life of the dweller on the plains or in the
mountains.

But a few years ago other risks had to be run
from savage beasts, and from the Indians. Since
I have been ranching on the Little Missouri, two
men have been killed by bears in the neighbor-
hood of my range; and in the early years of my
residence there, several men living or travelling in
the country were slain by small war-parties of
young braves. All the old-time trappers and
hunters could tell stirring tales of their encounters
with Indians.

My friend, Tazewell Woody, was among the
chief actors in one of the most noteworthy adven-
tures of this kind. He was a very quiet man, and
it was exceedingly difficult to get him to talk over
any of his past experiences ; but one day, when he
was in high good-humor with me for having made
three consecutive straight shots at elk, he became
quite communicative, and I was able to get him to
tell me one story which I had long wished to hear
from his lips, having already heard of it through

VOL. II, — 16,

242 The Wilderness Hunter

one of the other survivors of the incident. When
he found that I already knew a good deal old
Woody told me the rest.

It was in the spring of 1875, and Woody and
two friends were trapping on the Yellowstone.
The Sioux were very bad at the time, and had
killed many prospectors, hunters, cowboys, and
settlers ; the whites retaliated whenever they got
a chance, but, as always in Indian warfare, the
sly, lurking, bloodthirsty savages inflicted much
more loss than they suffered.

The three men, having a dozen horses with them,
were camped by the riverside in a triangular
patch of brush, shaped a good deal like a common
flat-iron. On reaching camp they started to put
out their traps; and when he came back in the
evening Woody informed his companions that he
had seen a great deal of Indian sign, and that he
believed there were Sioux in the neighborhood.
His companions both laughed at him, assuring him
that they were not Sioux at all, but friendly Crows,
and that they would be in camp next morning;
"and sure enough," said Woody, meditatively,
"they were in camp next morning" By dawn
one of the men went down the river to look at
some of the traps, while Woody started out to
where the horses were, the third man remaining in
camp to get breakfast. Suddenly two shots were
heard down the river, and in another moment a

In Cowboy Land 243

motmted Indian swept towards the horses. Woody
fired, but missed him, and he drove off five while
Woody, running forward, succeeded in herding
the other seven into camp. Hardly had this been
accomplished before the man who had gone down
the river appeared, out of breath with his desper-
ate run, having been surprised by several Indians,
and just succeeded in making his escape by dodg-
ing from bush to bush, threatening his pursuers
with his rifle.

These proved to be but the forerunners of a
great war party, for when the sun rose the hills
around seemed black with Sioux. Had they
chosen to dash right in on the camp, running the
risk of losing several of their men in the charge,
they could of course have eaten up the three
hunters in a minute; but such a charge is rarely
practised by Indians, who, although they are ad-
mirable in defensive warfare, and even in certain
kinds of offensive movements, and although from
their skill in hiding they usually inflict much more
loss than they suffer when matched against white
troops, are yet very reluctant to make any move-
ment where the advantage gained must be off-
set by considerable loss of life. The three men
thought they were surely doomed, but being
veteran frontiersmen and long inured to every
kind of hardship and danger, they set to work
with cool resolution to make as effective a defence

244 The Wilderness Hunter

as possible, to beat off their antagonists if they
might, and if this proved impracticable, to sell
their lives as dearly as they could. Having
tethered the horses in a slight hollow, the only
one which offered any protection, each man crept
out to a point of the triangular brush patch and
lay down to await events.

In a very short while the Indians began closing
in on them, taking every advantage of cover, and
then, both from their side of the river and from
the opposite bank, opened a perfect fusillade,
wasting their cartridges with a recklessness which
Indians are apt to show when excited. The himt-
ers could hear the hoarse commands of the chiefs,
the war-whoops, and the taunts in broken English
which some of the warriors hurled at them. Very
soon all of their horses were killed, and the brush
was fairly riddled by the incessant volleys; but
the three men themselves, lying flat on the groimd
and well concealed, were not harmed. The more
daring young warriors then began to creep toward
the hunters, going stealthily from one piece of
cover to the next; and now the whites in turn
opened fire. They did not shoot recklessly, as did
their foes, but coolly and quietly, endeavoring to
make each shot tell. Said Woody: " I only fired
seven times all day; I reckoned on getting meat
every time I pulled trigger." They had an im-
mense advantage over their enemies, in that

In Cowboy Land 245

whereas they lay still and entirely concealed, the
Indians of course had to move from cover to cover
in order to approach, and so had at times to expose
themselves. When the whites fired at all they
fired at a man, whether moving or motionless,
whom they could clearly see, while the Indians
could only shoot at the smoke, which imperfectly
marked the position of their unseen foes. In con-
sequence, the assailants speedily found that it was
a task of hopeless danger to try in such a manner
to close in on three plains veterans, men of iron
nerve and skilled in the use of the rifle. Yet some
of the more daring crept up very close to the patch
of brush, and one actually got inside it, and was
killed among the bedding that lay by the smoulder-
ing camp-fire. The wounded and such of the
dead as did not lie in too exposed positions were
promptly taken away by their comrades; but
seven bodies fell into the hands of the three hunt-
ers. I asked Woody how many he himself had
killed. He said he could only be sure of two that
he got ; one he shot in the head as he peeped over
a bush, and the other he shot through the smoke
as he attempted to rush in. ''My, how that In-
dian did yell!" said Woody, retrospectively; ''he
was no great of a Stoic." After two or three hours
of this deadly skirmishing, which resulted in
nothing more serious to the whites than in two of
them being slightly wounded, the Sioux became

246 The Wilderness Hunter

disheartened by the loss they were suffering and
withdrew, confining themselves thereafter to a
long range and harmless fusillade. When it was
dark the three men crept out to the river bed, and
taking advantage of the pitchy night broke through
the circle of their foes ; they managed to reach the
settlements without further molestation, having
lost everything except their rifles.

For many years one of the most important of
the wilderness dwellers was the West Point officer,
and no man has played a greater part than he in
the wild warfare which opened the regions beyond
the Mississippi to white settlement. Since 1879,
there has been but little regular Indian fighting in
the North, though there have been one or two very
tedious and wearisome campaigns waged against
the Apaches in the South. Even in the North,
however, there have been occasional uprisings
which had to be quelled by the regular troops.

After my elk-hunt in September, 1891, I came
out through the Yellowstone Park, as I have else-
where related, riding in company with a surveyor
of the Burlington and Quincy railroad, who was
just coming in from his summer's work. It was
the first of October. There had been a heavy
snow-storm and the snow was still falling. Riding
a stout pony each, and leading another packed
with our bedding, etc., we broke our way from the
Upper to the Middle Geyser Basin. Here we found

In Cowboy Land 247

a troop of the ist Cavalry camped, under the com-
mand of old friends of mine, Captain Frank Ed-
wards and Lieutenant (now Captain) John Pitcher.
They gave us hay for our horses and insisted upon
our stopping to lunch, with the ready hospitality
always shown by army officers. After lunch we
began exchanging stories. My travelling com-
panion, the surveyor, had that spring performed
a feat of note, going through one of the canyons of
the Big Horn for the first time. He went with an
old mining inspector, the two of them dragging a
Cottonwood sledge over the ice. The walk of the
canyon are so sheer and the water so rough that it
can be descended only when the stream is frozen.
However, after six days' labor and hardship the
descent was accomplished; and the surveyor, in
concluding, described his experience in going
through the Crow Reservation.

This turned the conversation upon Indians, and
it appeared that both of our hosts had been actors
in Indian scrapes which had attracted my atten-
tion at the time they occurred, as they took place
among tribes that I knew and in a country which
I had sometime visited, either when hunting or
when purchasing horses for the ranch. The first,
which occurred to Captain Edwards, happened
late in 1886, at the time when the Crow Medicine
Chief, Sword-Bearer, announced himself as the
Messiah of the Indian race, during one of the usual

248 The Wilderness Hunter

epidemics of ghost dancing. Sword-Bearer de-
rived his name from always wearing a medicine
sword — ^that is, a sabre painted red. He claimed
to possess magic power, and, thanks to the per-
formance of many dextrous feats of juggling, and
the lucky outcome of certain prophecies, he deeply
stirred the Indians, arousing the young warriors
in particular to the highest pitch of excitement.
They became sullen, began to paint, and armed
themselves ; and the agent and the settlers nearby
grew so apprehensive that the troops were ordered
to go to the reservation. A body of cavalry, in-
cluding Captain Edwards's troop, was accordingly
marched thither, and found the Crow warriors,
mounted on their war ponies and dressed in their
striking battle-garb, waiting on a hill.

The position of troops at the beginning of such
an affair is always peculiarly difficult. The settlers
roundabout are sure to clamor bitterly against
them, no matter what they do, on the ground that
they are not thorough enough and are showing
favor to the savages, while on the other hand,
even if they fight purely in self-defence, a large
number of worthy but weak-minded sentimen-
talists in the East are sure to shriek about their
having brutally attacked the Indians. The war
authorities always insist that they must not fire
the first shot under any circumstances, and such
were the orders at this time. The Crows on the

In Cowboy Land 249

hilltop showed a sullen and threatening front, and
the troops advanced slowly towards them and then
halted for a parley. Meanwhile a mass of black
thunder-clouds gathering on the horizon threatened
one of those cloudbursts of extreme severity and
suddenness so characteristic of the plains country.
While still trying to make arrangements for a par-
ley, a horseman started out of the Crow ranks and
galloped headlong down towards the troops. It
was the medicine chief. Sword- Bearer. He was
painted and in his battle-dress, wearing his war-
bonnet of floating, trailing eagle feathers, while
the plumes of the same bird were braided in the
mane and tail of his fiery little horse. On he came
at a gallop almost up to the troops and then began
to circle around them, calling and singing and
throwing his crimson sword into the air, catching
it by the hilt as it fell. Twice he rode completely
around the soldiers, who stood in uncertainty, not
knowing what to make of his performance, and
expressly forbidden to shoot at him. Then paying
no further heed to them he rode back towards the
Crows. It appears that he had told them that he
would ride twice around the hostile force, and by
his incantations would call down rain from heaven
which would make the hearts of the white men
like water, so that they should go back to their
homes. Sure enough, while the arrangements for
the parley were still going forward, down came

250 The Wilderness Hunter

the cloudburst, drenching the command and mak-
ing the ground on the hills in front nearly impass-
able; and before it dried a courier arrived with
orders to the troops to go back to camp.

This fulfilment of Sword- Bearer's prophecy, of
course, raised his reputation to the zenith, and the
young men of the tribe prepared for war, while the
older chiefs, who more fully realized the power of
the whites, still hung back. When the troops
next appeared they came upon the entire Crow
force, the women and children with their tepees
being off to one side beyond a little stream, while
almost all the warriors of the tribe were gathered
in front. Sword-Bearer started to repeat his
former ride, to the intense irritation of the soldiers.
Luckily, however, this time some of his young
men could not be restrained. They too began to
ride near the troops, and one of them was unable
to refrain from firing on Captain Edwards's troop,
which was in the van. This gave the soldiers
their chance. They instantly responded with a
volley, and Captain Edwards's troop charged. The
fight lasted but a minute or two, for Sword- Bearer
was struck by a bullet and fell, and as he had
boasted himself invulnerable, and promised that
his warriors should be invulnerable also if they
would follow him, the hearts of the latter became
as water, and they broke in every direction. One
of the amusing, though irritating, incidents of the

In Cowboy Land 251

affair was to see the plumed and painted warriors
race headlong for the camp, plunge into the
stream, wash off their war paint, and remove their
feathers ; in another moment they would be stol-
idly sitting on the ground, with their blankets
over their shoulders, rising to greet the pursuing
cavalry with unmoved composure and calm assur-
ances that they had always been friendly and had
much disapproved the conduct of the young bucks
who had just been scattered on the field outside.
It was much to the credit of the discipline of the
army that no bloodshed followed the fight proper.
The loss to the whites was small.

The other incident, related by Lieutenant
Pitcher, took place in 1890, near Tongue River, in
northern Wyoming. The command with which he
was serving was camped near the Cheyenne Res-
servation. One day two young Cheyenne bucks
met one of the government herders, and promptly
killed him — in a sudden fit, half of ungovernable
blood lust, half of mere ferocious lightheartedness.
They then dragged his body into the brush and
left it. The disappearance of the herder of course
attracted attention, and a search was organized by
the cavalry. At first , the Indians stoutly denied all
knowledge of the missing man; but when it be-
came evident that the search party would shortly
find him, two or three of the chiefs joined them,
and piloted them to where the body lay, and

252 The Wilderness Hunter

acknowledged that he had been murdered by two
of their band, though at first they refused to give
their names. The commander of the post de-
manded that the murderers be given up. The
chiefs said that they were very sorry, that this
could not be done, but that they were willing to
pay over any reasonable number of ponies to
make amends for the death. This offer was, of
course, promptly refused, and the commander noti-
fied them that if they did not surrender the mur-
derers by a certain time he would hold the whole
tribe responsible and would promptly move out
and attack them. Upon this the chiefs, after
holding full counsel with the tribe, told the com-
mander that they had no power to surrender the
murderers, but that the latter had said that
sooner than see their tribe involved in a hopeless
struggle they would of their own accord come in
and meet the troops anywhere the latter chose to
appoint, and die fighting. To this the com-
mander responded: ''All right; let them come
into the agency in half an hour." The chiefs
acquiesced, and withdrew.

Immediately the Indians sent mounted mes-
sengers at speed from camp to camp, summoning
all their people to witness the act of fierce self-
doom; and soon the entire tribe of Cheyennes,
many of them having their faces blackened in
token of mourning, moved down and took up a

In Cowboy Land 253

position on the hillside close to the agency. At
the appointed hour both young men appeared in
their handsome war dress, galloped to the top of
the hill near the encampment, and deliberately
opened fire on the troops. The latter merely
fired a few shots to keep the young desperadoes
off, while Lieutenant Pitcher and a score of
cavalrymen left camp to make a circle and drive
them in; they did not wish to hurt them, but
to capture them and give them over to the In-
dians, so that the latter might be forced them-
selves to inflict the punishment. However, they
were unable to accomplish their purpose; one of
the young braves went straight at them, firing his
rifle and wounding the horse of one of the cavalry-
men, so that, simply in self-defence, the latter
had to fire a volley, which laid low the assailant ;
the other, his horse having been shot, was killed
in the brush, fighting to the last. All the while,
from the moment the two doomed braves ap-
peared until they fell, the Cheyennes on the hill-
side had been steadily singing the death chant.
When the young men had both died, and had
thus averted the fate which their misdeeds would
else have brought upon the tribe, the warriors
took their bodies and bore them away for burial
honors, the soldiers looking on in silence. Where
the slain men were buried the whites never knew ;
but all that night they listened to the dismal

2 54 The Wilderness Hunter

wailing of the dirges with which the tribesmen
celebrated their gloomy funeral rites.

Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very
superstitious. They lead lives too hard and prac-
tical, and they have too little imagination in things
spiritual and supernatural. I have heard but few
ghost stories while living on the frontier, and these
few were of a perfectly commonplace and conven-
tional type.

But I once listened to a goblin story which
rather impressed me. It was told by a grizzled,
weather-beaten old mountain hunter, named
Bauman, who was bom and had passed all his
life on the frontier. He must have believed
what he said, for he could hardly repress a shud-
der at certain points of the tale; but he was of
German ancestry, and in childhood had doubt-
less been saturated with all kinds of ghost and
goblin lore, so that many fearsome superstitions
were latent in his mind; besides, he knew well
the stories told by the Indian medicine men in
their winter camps, of the snow- walkers, and the
spectres, and the formless evil beings that haunt
the forest depths, and dog and waylay the lonely
wanderer who after nightfall passes through the
regions where they lurk; and it may be that
when overcome by the horror of the fate that be-
fell his friend, and when oppressed by the awful
dread of the unknown, he grew to attribute, both

In Cowboy Land 255

at the time and still more in remembrance, weird i -f

and elfin traits to what was merely some abnor- ^

mally wicked and cunning wild beast; but
whether this was so or not, no man can say.

When the event occurred Bauman was still a
young man, and was trapping with a partner
among the mountains dividing the forks of the
Salmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not
having had much luck, he and his partner deter-
mined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely
pass through which ran a small stream said to con-
tain many beaver. The pass had an evil reputa-
tion because the year before a solitary hunter who
had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by
a wild beast, the half -eaten remains being after-
wards found by some mining prospectors who had
passed his camp only the night before.

The memory of this event, however, weighed
very lightly with the two trappers, who were as
adventurous and hardy as others of their kind.
They took their two lean mountain ponies to the
foot of the pass, where they left them in an open
beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground
being from thence onwards impracticable for
horses. They then struck out on foot through the
vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours
reached a little open glade where they concluded
to camp, as signs of game were plenty.

There was still an hour or two of daylight left,

256 The Wilderness Hunter

and after building a brush lean-to and throwing
down and opening their packs, they started up
stream. The country was very dense and hard to
travel through, as there was much down timber,
although here and there the sombre woodland was
broken by small glades of mountain grass.

At dusk they again reached camp. The glade
in which it was pitched was not many yards wide,
the tall, close-set pines and firs rising round it like
a wall. On one side was a little stream, beyond
which rose the steep mountain-slopes, covered
with the unbroken growth of the evergreen forest.

They were surprised to find that during their
short absence something, apparently a bear, had
visited camp, and had rummaged about among
their things, scattering the contents of their packs,
and in sheer wantonness destroying their lean-to.
The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but
at first they paid no particular heed to them, busy-
ing themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying
out their beds and stores, and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it
being already dark, his companion began to ex-
amine the tracks more closely, and soon took a
brand from the fire to follow them up, where the
intruder had walked along a game trail after
leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out,
he returned and took another, repeating his in-
spection of the footprints very closely. Coming

In Cowboy Land 257

back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two,
peering out into the darkness, and suddenly re-
marked: "Bauman, that bear has been walking
on two legs." Bauman laughed at this, but his
partner insisted that he was right, and upon again
examining the tracks with a torch, they certainly
did seem to be made by but two paws, or feet.
However, it was too dark to make sure. After
discussing whether the footprints could possibly
be those of a human being, and coming to the
conclusion that they could not be, the two men
rolled up in their blankets, and went to sleep
under the lean-to.

At midnight Bauman was awakened by some
noise, and sat up in his blankets. As he did so
his nostrils were struck by a strong, wild-beast
odor, and he caught the loom of a great body in
the darkness at the mouth of the lean-to. Grasp-
ing his rifle, he fired at the vague, threatening
shadow, but must have missed, for immediately
afterwards he heard the smashing of the under-
wood as the thing, whatever it was, rushed off into
the impenetrable blackness of the forest and the
night.

After this the two men slept but little, sitting up
by the rekindled fire, but they heard nothing more.
In the morning they started out to look at the few
traps they had set the previous evening and to put
out new ones. By an unspoken agreement they

VOL. II. — 17

258 The Wilderness Hunter

kept together all day, and returned to camp
towards evening.

On nearing it they saw, to their astonishment,
that the lean-to had been again torn down. The
visitor of the preceding day had returned, and in
wanton malice had tossed about their camp kit
and bedding, and destroyed the shanty. The
ground was marked up by its tracks, and on leav-
ing the camp it had gone along the soft earth by
the brook, where the footprints were as plain as if
on snow, and, after a careful scrutiny of the trail,
it certainly did seem as if, whatever the thing was,
it had walked off on but two legs.

The men, thoroughly uneasy, gathered a great
heap of dead logs, and kept up a roaring fire
throughout the night, one or the other sitting on
guard most of the time. About midnight the
thing came down through the forest opposite,
across the brook, and stayed there on the hillside
for nearly an hour. They could hear the branches
crackle as it moved about, and several times it
uttered a harsh, grating, long-drawn moan, a pe-
culiarly sinister sound. Yet it did not venture
near the fire.

In the morning the two trappers, after discuss-
ing the strange events of the last thirty-six hours,
decided that they would shoulder their packs and
leave the valley that afternoon. They were the
more ready to do this because in spite of seeing a

In Cowboy Land 259

good deal of game sign they had caught very little
fur. However, it was necessary first to go along
the line of their traps and gather them, and this
they started out to do.

All the morning they kept together, picking up
trap after trap, each one empty. On first leaving
camp they had the disagreeable sensation of being
followed. In the dense spruce thickets they occa-
sionally heard a branch snap after they had passed ;
and now and then there were slight rustling noises
among the small pines to one side of them.

At noon they were back within a couple of
miles of camp. In the high, bright sunlight their
fears seemed absurd to the two armed men, ac-
customed as they were, through long years of
lonely wandering in the wilderness, to face every
kind of danger from man, brute, or element.
There were still three beaver traps to collect from
a little pond in a wide ravine near by. Bauman
volunteered to gather these and bring them in,
while his companion went ahead to camp and
made ready the packs.

On reaching the pond Bauman found three
beaver in the traps, one of which had been pulled
loose and carried into a beaver house. He took
several hours in securing and preparing the beaver,
and when he started homewards he marked with
some uneasiness how low the sun was getting. As
he hurried towards camp, under the tall trees, the

26o The Wilderness Hunter

silence and desolation of the forest weighed on him.
His feet made no sound on the pine-needles, and
the slanting sun-rays, striking through among the
straight trunks, made a gray twilight in which
objects at a distance glimmered indistinctly.
There was nothing to break the ghostly stillness
which, when there is no breeze, always broods over
these sombre primeval forests.

At last he came to the edge of the little glade
where the camp lay, and shouted as he approached
it, but got no answer. The camp-fire had gone
out, though the thin blue smoke was still curling
upwards. Near it lay the packs, wrapped and
arranged. At first Bauman could see nobody;
nor did he receive an answer to his call. Stepping
forward he again shouted, and as he did so his eye
fell on the body of his friend, stretched beside the
trunk of a great fallen spruce. Rushing towards
it the horrified trapper found that the body was
still warm, but that the neck was broken, while
there were four great fang-marks in the throat.

The footprints of the unknown beast-creature,
printed deep in the soft soil, told the whole story.

The unfortunate man, having finished his pack-
ing, had sat down on the spruce log with his face to
the fire, and his back to the dense woods, to wait
for his companion. While thus waiting, his mon-
strous assailant, which must have been lurking
nearby in the woods, waiting for a chance to catch

In Cowboy Land 261

one of the adventurers unprepared, came silently
up from behind, walking with long, noiseless steps,
and seemingly still on two legs. Evidently un-
heard, it reached the man, and broke his neck by
wrenching his head back with its fore paws, while
it buried its teeth in his throat. It had not eaten
the body, but apparently had romped and gam-
bolled round it in uncouth, ferocious glee, occasion-
ally rolling over and over it; and had then fled
back into the soundless depths of the woods.

Bauman, utterly unnerved, and believing that
the creature with which he had to deal was some-
thing either half human or half devil, some great
goblin-beast, abandoned everything but his rifle
and struck off at speed down the pass, not halting
until he reached the beaver meadows where the
hobbled ponies were still grazing. Mounting, he
rode onwards through the night, until far beyond
the reach of pursuit.

CHAPTER X

HUNTING LORE

IT has been my good luck to kill every kind of
game properly belonging to the United States :
though one beast which I never had a chance
to slay, the jaguar, from the torrid South, some-
times comes just across the Rio Grande ; nor have
I ever hunted the musk-ox and polar bear in the
boreal wastes where they dwell, surrounded by
the frozen desolation of the uttermost North.

I have never sought to make large bags, for a
hunter should not be a game butcher. It is
always lawful to kill dangerous or noxious ani-
mals, like the bear, cougar, and wolf; but other
game should only be shot when there is need of
the meat, or for the sake of an unusually fine
trophy. Killing a reasonable number of bulls,
bucks, or rams does no harm whatever to the"
species; to slay half the males of any kind of
game would not stop the natural increase, and
they yield the best sport, and are the legitimate
objects of the chase. Cows, does, and ewes, on
the contrary, should only be killed (unless barren)
in case of necessity; during my last five years'

262

Hunting Lore 263

hunting I have killed but five — one by a mischance
and the other four for the table.

From its very nature, the life of the hunter is
in most places evanescent ; and when it has van-
ished there can be no real substitute in old settled
countries. Shooting in a private game preserve
is but a dismal parody ; the manliest and health-
iest features of the sport are lost with the change
of conditions. We need, in the interest of the
community at large, a rigid system of game laws
rigidly enforced, and it is not only admissible,
but one may say almost necessary, to establish,
under the control of the State, great national
forest reserves, which shall also be breeding-
grounds and nurseries for wild game; but I
should much regret to see grow up in this country
a system of large private game preserves, kept
for the enjoyment of the very rich. One of the
chief attractions of the life of the wilderness is its
rugged and stalwart democracy ; there every man
stands for what he actually is, and can show him-
self to be.

There are, in different parts of our country,
chances to try so many various kinds of hunting,
with rifle or with horse and hound, that it is nearly
impossible for one man to have experience of
them all. There are many hunts I have long
hoped to take, but never did and never shall;
they must be left for men with more time, or for

264 The Wilderness Hunter

those whose homes are nearer to the hunting-
grounds. I have never seen a grisly roped by
the riders of the plains, nor a black bear killed
with the knife and hounds in the southern cane-
brakes ; though at one time I had for many years
a standing invitation to witness this last feat on a
plantation in Arkansas. The friend who gave it,
an old backwoods planter, at one time lost almost
all his hogs by the numerous bears which infested
his neighborhood. He took a grimly humorous
revenge each fall by doing his winter killing among
the bears instead of among the hogs they had
slain; for as the cold weather approached he
regularly proceeded to lay in a stock of bear-
bacon, scouring the canebrakes in a series of
systematic hunts, bringing the quarry to bay
with the help of a big pack of hard-fighting
mongrels, and then killing it with his long, broad-
bladed bowie.

Again, I should like to make a trial at killing
peccaries with the spear, whether on foot or on
horseback, and with or without dogs. I should
like much to repeat the experience of a friend
who cruised northward through Bering Sea, shoot-
ing walrus and polar bear ; and that of two other
friends who travelled with dog-sleds to the Barren
Grounds, in chase of the caribou and of that
last survivor of the Ice Age, the strange musk-
ox. Once in a while it must be good sport to

Hunting Lore 265

shoot alligators by torchlight in the everglades of
Florida or the bayous of Louisiana.

If the big-game hunter, the lover of the rifle,
has a taste for kindred field sports with rod and
shotgun, many are his chances for pleasure,
though perhaps of a less intense kind. The wild
turkey really deserves a place beside the deer;
to kill a wary old gobbler with the small-bore rifle,
by fair still-hunting, is a triumph for the best
sportsman. Swans, geese, and sandhill cranes like-
wise may sometimes be killed with the rifle; but
more often all three, save perhaps the swan, must
be shot over decoys. Then there is prairie-chick-
en shooting on the fertile grain prairies of the mid-
dle West, from Minnesota to Texas; and killing
canvas-backs from behind blinds, with the help of
that fearless swimmer, the Chesapeake Bay dog.
In Californian mountains and valleys live the
beautiful plumed quails, and who does not know
their cousin bob-white, the bird of the farm, with
his cheery voice and friendly ways ? For pure fun,
nothing can surpass a night scramble through the
woods after coon and possum.

The salmon, whether near Puget Sound or the
St. Lawrence, is the royal fish; his only rival is
the giant of the warm Gulf waters, the silver-
mailed tarpon ; while along the Atlantic coast the
great striped bass likewise yields fine sport to
the men of rod and reel. Every hunter of the

266 The Wilderness Hunter

mountains and the northern woods knows the
many kinds of spotted trout ; for the black bass he
cares less ; and least of all for the sluggish pickerel
and his big brother of the Great Lakes, the mus-
callonge.

Yet the sport yielded by rod and smooth-bore is
really less closely kin to the strong pleasures so
beloved by the hunter who trusts in horse and
rifle than are certain other outdoor pastimes, of
the rougher and hardier kind. Such a pastime is
snow-shoeing, whether with webbed rackets, in
the vast northern forests, or with skees, on the
bare slopes of the Rockies. Such is mountaineer-
ing, especially when joined with bold exploration
of the unknown. Most of our mountains are of
rounded shape, and though climbing them is often
hard work, it is rarely difficult or dangerous, save
in bad weather, or after a snowfall. But there are
many of which this is not true; the Tetons, for
instance, and various glacier-bearing peaks in the
Northwest; while the lofty, snow-clad ranges of
British Columbia and Alaska offer one of the finest
fields in the world for the daring cragsman. Moun-
taineering is among the manliest of sports ; and it
is to be hoped that some of our young men with a
taste for hard work and adventure among the high
hills will attempt the conquest of these great un-
trodden mountains of their own continent. As
with all pioneer work, there would be far more dis-

Hunting Lore 267

comfort and danger, far more need to display res-
olution, hardihood, and wisdom in such an attempt
than in any expedition on well-known and his-
toric ground like the Swiss Alps ; but the victory
would be a hundred-fold better worth winning.

The dweller or sojourner in the wilderness who
most keenly loves and appreciates his wild sur-
roundings, and all their sights and sounds, is the
man who also loves and appreciates the books
which tell of them.

Foremost of all American writers on outdoor life
is John Burroughs; and I can scarcely suppose
that any man who cares for existence outside the
cities would willingly be without anything that he
has ever written. To the naturalist, to the ob-
server and lover of nature, he is of course worth
many times more than any closet systematist ; and
though he has not been very much in really wild
regions, his pages so thrill with the sights and
sounds of outdoor life that nothing by any writer
who is a mere professional scientist or a mere pro-
fessional hunter can take their place, or do more
than supplement them — for scientist and hunter
alike would do well to remember that before a
book can take the highest rank in any particular
line it must also rank high in literature proper.
Of course, for us Americans, Burroughs has a pe-
culiar charm that he cannot have for others, no
matter how much they, too, may like him; for

268 The Wilderness Hunter

what he writes of is our own, and he calls to our
minds memories and associations that are very
dear. His books make us homesick when we read
them in foreign lands; for they spring from our
soil as truly as Snowbound or The Biglow Papers.^

As a woodland writer, Thoreau comes second
only to Burroughs.

For natural history in the narrower sense there
are still no better books than Audubon and Bach-
man's Mammals and Audubon's Birds. There are
also good works by men like Coues and Bendire ;
and if Hart Merriam, of the Smithsonian, will only
do for the mammals of the United States what he
has already done for those of the Adirondacks, we
shall have the best book of its kind in existence.
Nor, among less technical writings, should one
overlook such essays as those of Maurice Thompson
and Olive Thorne Miller.

^ I am under many obligations to the writings of Mr. Bur-
roughs (though there are one or two of his theories from
which I should dissent) ; and there is a piece of indebtedness
in this very volume of which I have only just become aware.
In my chapter on the prongbuck there is a paragraph which
will at once suggest to any lover of Burroughs some sentences
in his essay on Birds and Poets. I did not notice the resem-
blance until happening to reread the essay after my own
chapter was written, and at the time I had no idea that I was
borrowing from anybody, the more so as I was thinking
purely of western wilderness life and western wilderness game,
with which I knew Mr. Burroughs had never been familiar.
I have concluded to leave the paragraph in with this acknow-
ledgment.

Hunting Lore 269

There have been many American hunting-
books ; but too often they have been very worth-
less, even when the writers possessed the necessary
first-hand knowledge, and the rare capacity of see-
ing the truth. Few of the old-time hunters ever
tried to write of what they had seen and done;
and of those who made the effort fewer still suc-
ceeded. Innate refinement and the literary fac-
ulty— that is, the faculty of writing a thoroughly
interesting and readable book, full of valuable in-
formation— may exist in uneducated people ; but
if they do not, no amount of experience in the field
can supply their lack. However, we have had
some good works on the chase and habits of big
game, such as Caton's Deer and Antelope of Amer-
ica, Van Dyke's Still-Hunter, Elliott's Carolina
Sports, and Dodge's Hunting Grounds of the Great
West, besides the Century Company's Sport with
Rod and Gun. Then there is Catlin's book, and
the journals of the explorers from Lewis and
Clarke down ; and occasional volumes on outdoor
life, such as Theodore Winthrop's Canoe and
Saddle, and Clarence King's Mountaineering in the
Sierra Nevada.

Two or three of the great writers of American
literature, notably Parkman in his Oregon Trail
and, with less interest, Irving in his Trip on the
Prairies, have written with power and charm of
life in the American wilderness; but no one has

270 The Wilderness Hunter

arisen to do for the far western plainsmen and
Rocky Mountain trappers quite what Hermann
Melville did for the South Sea whaling folk in Omoo
and Moby Dick. The best description of these
old-time dwellers among the mountains and on the
plains is to be found in a couple of good volumes
by the Englishman Ruxton. However, the back-
woodsmen proper, both in their forest homes and
when they first began to venture out on the prairie,
have been portrayed by a master hand. In a suc-
cession of wonderfully drawn characters, ranging
from *' Aaron Thousandacres " to " Ishmael Bush,"
Fenimore Cooper has preserved for always the
likenesses of these stark pioneer settlers and back-
woods hunters : uncouth, narrow, hard, suspicious,
but with all the virile virtues of a young and mas-
terful race, a race of mighty breeders, mighty
fighters, mighty commonwealth-builders. As for
Leatherstocking, he is one of the undying men
of story: grand, simple, kindly, pure-minded,
staunchly loyal, the type of the steel-t hewed and
iron- willed hunter- warrior.

Turning from the men of fiction to the men of
real life, it is worth noting how many of the leaders
among our statesmen and soldiers have sought
strength and pleasure in the chase, or in kindred
vigorous pastimes. Of course, field sports, or at
least the wilder kinds, which entail the exercise of
daring, and the endurance of toil and hardship,

Hunting Lore 271

and which lead men afar into the forests and moun-
tains, stand above athletic exercises; exactly as
among the latter, rugged outdoor games, like foot-
ball and lacrosse, are much superior to mere gym-
nastics and calisthenics.

With a few exceptions the men among us who
have stood foremost in political leadership, like
their fellows who have led our armies, have been
of stalwart frame and sound bodily health. When
they sprang from the frontier folk, as did Lincoln
and Andrew Jackson, they usually hunted much
in their youth, if only as an incident in the pro-
longed warfare waged by themselves and their
kinsmen against the wild forces of nature. Old
Israel Putnam's famous wolf -killing feat comes
strictly under this head. Doubtless he greatly
enjoyed the excitement of the adventure ; but he
went into it as a matter of business, not of sport.
The wolf, the last of its kind in his neighborhood,
had taken heavy toll of the flocks of himself and
his friends; when they found the deep cave in
which it had made its den it readily beat off the
dogs sent in to assail it ; and so Putnam crept in
himself, with his torch and his flint-lock musket,
and shot the beast where it lay.

When such men lived in long-settled and thickly
peopled regions, they needs had to accommodate
themselves to the conditions and put up with
humbler forms of sport. Webster, like his great

272 The Wilderness Hunter

rival for Whig leadership, Henry Clay, cared
much for horses, dogs, and guns; but though an
outdoor man he had no chance to develop a love
for big-game hunting. He was, however, very
fond of the rod and shotgun. Mr. Cabot Lodge
recently handed me a letter written to his grand-
father by Webster, and describing a day's trout
fishing. It may be worth giving for the sake of
the writer, and because of the fine heartiness and
zest in enjoyment which it shows :

*' Sandwich, June 4,

"Saturday mor'g

"6 o'clock

"Dear Sir:

** I send you eight or nine trout, which I took
yesterday, in that chief of all brooks, Mashpee. I
made a long day of it, and with good success, for
me. John was with me, full of good advice, but
did not fish — nor carry a rod.
I took 26 trouts, all weighing . . 17 lb. 12 oz.
The largest (you have him)

weighed at Crokers . . . 2 " 4 **
The 5 largest. . . . . 3 " 5 "

The eight largest . . . . 11 *' 8 "

" I got these by following your advice; that is,
by careful & thorough fishing of the difficult places,
which others do not fish. The brook is fished,
nearly every day. I entered it, not so high up as
we sometimes do, between 7 & 8 o'clock, & at 12

Hunting Lore 273

was hardly more than half way down to the meet-
ing-house path. You see I did not hurry. The
day did not hold out to fish the whole brook prop-
erly. The largest trout I took at 3 p.m. (you see
I am precise) below the meeting-house, imder a
bush on the right bank, two or three rods below the
large beeches. It is singular, that in the whole day,
I did not take two t routs out of the same hole. I
found both ends, or parts of the Brook about
equally productive. Small fish not plenty, in
either. So many hooks get everything which is
not hid away in the manner large trouts take care
of themselves. I hooked one, which I suppose to
be larger than any which I took, as he broke my
line, by fair pulling, after I had pulled him out of
his den, & was playing him in fair open water.

" Of what I send you, I pray you keep what you
wish yourself, send three to Mr. Ticknor, & three
to Dr. Warren; or two of the larger ones, to each
will perhaps be enough — & if there be any left,
there is Mr. Callender & Mr. Blake, & Mr. Davis,
either of them not ' averse to fish.' Pray let Mr.
Davis see them — especially the large one. — As he
promised to come, & fell back, I desire to excite
his regrets, I hope you will have the large one on
your own table.

"The day was fine — not another hook in the
Brook. John steady as a judge — and everything
else exactly right. I never, on the whole, had so

VOL. II.— 18.

2 74 The Wilderness Hunter

agreeable a day's fishing tho' the result in pounds
or numbers, is not great; — nor ever expect such
another.

"Please preserve this letter; but rehearse not
these particulars to the uninitiated.

**I think the Limerick not the best hook.
Whether it pricks too soon, or for what other
reason, I found, or thought I found, the fish more
likely to let go his hold, from this, than from the
old-fashioned hook.

"Yrs.

"D. Webster.

"H. Cabot, Esq."

The greatest of Americans, Washington, was
very fond of hunting, both with rifle or fowling-
piece, and especially with horse, horn, and hound.
Essentially the representative of all that is best in
our national life, standing high as a general, high as
a statesman, and highest of all as a man, he could
never have been what he was had he not taken
delight in feats of hardihood, of daring, and of
bodily prowess. He was strongly drawn to those
field sports which demand in their follower the
exercise of the manly virtues — courage, endurance,
physical address. As a young man, clad in the
distinctive garb of the backwoodsman, the fringed
and tasselled hunting-shirt, he led the life of a
frontier surveyor ; and like his fellow adventurers

Hunting Lore 275

in wilderness exploration and Indian campaigning,
he was often forced to trust to the long rifle for
keeping his party in food. When at his home, at
Mount Vernon, he hunted from simple delight in
the sport.

His manuscript diaries, preserved in the State
Department at Washington, are full of entries con-
cerning his feats in the chase ; almost all of them
naturally falling in the years between the ending
of the French War and the opening of the Revolu-
tionary struggle against the British, or else in the
period separating his sen,dces as Commander-in-
chief of the Continental armies from his term of
office as President of the Republic. These entries
are scattered through others dealing with his
daily duties in overseeing his farm and mill, his
attendance at the Virginia House of Burgesses,
his journeys, the drill of the local militia, and all
the various interests of his many-sided life. Fond
though he was of hunting, he was wholly incapable
of the career of inanity led by those who make
sport, not a manly pastime, but the one serious
business of their lives.

The entries in the diaries are short, and are
couched in the homely, vigorous English, so famil-
iar to the readers of Washington's journals and
private letters. Sometimes they are brief jottings
in reference to shooting trips ; such as : " Rid out
with my gun " ; ' ' went pheasant hunting " ; ' ' went

276 The Wilderness Hunter

ducking," and ''went a gunning up the Creek."
But far more often they are: " Rid out with my
hounds," "went a fox hunting," or "went a hunt-
ing." In their perfect simpHcity and good faith
they are strongly characteristic of the man. He
enters his blank days and failures as conscientiously
as his red-letter days of success; recording with
equal care on one day, " Fox hunting with Captain
Posey — catch a Fox," and another, "Went a hunt-
ing with Lord Fairfax . . . cat ched nothing."
Occasionally he began as early as August and
continued until April; and while he sometimes
made but eight or ten hunts in a season, at others
he made as many in a month. Often he hunted
from Mount Vernon, going out once or twice a
week, either alone or with a party of his friends
and neighbors ; and again he would meet with these
same neighbors at one of their houses, and devote
several days solely to the chase. The country was
still very wild, and now and then game was en-
countered with which the fox-hounds proved un-
able to cope ; as witness entries like : " found both
a Bear and a Fox, but got neither"; "went a
hunting . . . started a Deer & then a Fox
but got neither" ; and "Went a hunting and after
trailing a fox a good while the Dogs Raized a Deer
& ran out of the Neck with it & did not some of
them at least come home till the next day." If it
was a small animal, however, it was soon ac-

Hunting Lore 277

counted for. " Went a Hunting . . . catched
a Rakoon but never found a Fox."

The woods were so dense and continuous that
it was often impossible for the riders to keep close
to the hounds throughout the run ; though in one
or two of the best covers, as the journal records,
Washington "directed paths to be cut for Fox
Hunting." This thickness of the timber made it
difficult to keep the hounds always under control ;
and there are frequent allusions to their going off
on their own account, as "Joined some dogs that
were self hunting." Sometimes the hounds got so
far away that it was impossible to tell whether
they had killed or not, the journal remarking
"catched nothing that we know of," or "found a
fox at the head of the blind Pocoson which we
suppose was killed in an hour but could not find it."

Another result of this density and continuity of
cover was the frequent recurrence of days of ill
success. There are many such entries as : " Went
Fox hunting, but started nothing"; "Went a
hunting, but catched nothing " ; " found nothing ' ' ;
"found a Fox and lost it." Often failure followed
long and hard runs : " Started a Fox, run him four
hours, took the Hounds off at night"; "found a
Fox and run it 6 hours and then lost " ; " Went a
hunting above Darrells . . . found a fox by
two Dogs but lost it upon joining the Pack." In
the season of 1772-73 Washington hunted eighteen

278 The Wilderness Hunter

days and killed nine foxes ; and though there were
seasons when he was out much more often, this
proportion of kills to runs was if anything above
the average. At the beginning of 1768 he met
with a series of blank days which might well have
daunted a less patient and persevering hunter.
In January and the early part of February he was
out nine times without getting a thing; but his
diary does not contain a word of disappointment
or surprise, each successive piece of ill luck being
entered without comment, even when one day he
met some more fortunate friends ''who had just
catched 2 foxes." At last, on February 12th, he
himself " catched two foxes " ; the six or eight gen-
tlemen of the neighborhood who made up the field
all went home with him to Mount Vernon, to dine
and pass the night, and in the hunt of the following
day they repeated the feat of a double score. In
the next seven days' hunting he killed four times.
The runs of course varied greatly in length ; on
one day he ''found a bitch fox at Piney Branch
and killed it in an hour" ; on another he " killed a
Dog fox after having him on foot three hours &
hard running an hour and a qr." ; and on yet an-
other he "catched a fox with a bobd Tail & cut
ears after 7 hours chase in which most of the Dogs
were worsted." Sometimes he caught his fox in
thirty-five minutes, and again he might run it
nearly the whole day in vain; the average run

Hunting Lore 279

seems to have been from an hour and a half to
three hours. Sometimes the entry records merely
the barren fact of the run; at others a few par-
ticulars are given, with homespun, telling direct-
ness, as: " Went a hunting with Jacky Custis and
catched a Bitch Fox after three hours chace —
founded it on ye. ck. by I. Soals " ; or " went a Fox
hunting with Lund Washington — took the drag
of a fox by Isaac Gates & carrd. it tolerably well
to the old Glebe then touched now and then upon
a cold scent till we came into Col. Fairfaxes Neck
where we found about half after three upon the
Hills just above Accotinck Creek — after running
till quite Dark took off the Dogs and came home."
The foxes were doubtless mostly of the gray
kind, and besides going to holes they treed readily.
In January, 1770, he was out seven days, killing
four foxes ; and two of the entries in the journal re-
late to foxes which treed; one, on the loth, being:
" I went a hunting in the Neck and visited the
plantn. there found and killed a bitch fox after
treeing it 3 t. chasg. it abt. 3 hrs.," and the other
on the 23d: "Went a hunting after breakfast &
f oimd a Fox at muddy hole & killed her (it being a
bitch) after a chase of better than two hours and
after treeing her twice the last of which times she
fell dead out of the Tree after being therein sevl.
minutes apparently." In April, 1769, he hunted
four days, and on every occasion the fox treed.

28o The Wilderness Hunter

April 7th, "Dog fox killed, ran an hour & treed
twice." April nth, "Went a fox hunting and
took a fox alive after running him to a Tree —
brot him home." April 12th, 'Xhased the above
fox an hour & 45 minutes when he treed again
after which we lost him." April 13th, ''Killed a
dog fox after treeing him in 35 minutes."

Washington continued his fox-hunting until, in
the spring of 1775, the guns of the minute-men in
Massachusetts called him to the command of the
Revolutionary soldiery. When the eight weary
years of campaigning were over, he said good-by to
the war-worn veterans whom he had led through
defeat and disaster to ultimate triumph, and be-
came once more the Virginian country gentleman.
Then he took up his fox-hunting with as much zest
as ever. The entries in his journal are now rather
longer, and go more into detail than formerly.
Thus, on December 12th, 1785, he writes that
after an early breakfast he went on a hunt and
found a fox at half after ten, "being first plagued
with the dogs running hogs," followed on his drag
for some time, then ran him hard for an hour,
when there came a fault; but when four dogs
which had been thrown out rejoined the pack
they put the fox up afresh, and after fifty
minutes' run killed him in an open field, "every
Rider & every Dog being present at the Death."
With his usual alternations between days like this,

Hunting Lore 281

and days of ill-luck, he hunted steadily every sea-
son until his term of private life again drew to a
close and he was called to the headship of the
nation he had so largely helped to found.

In a certain kind of fox-hunting lore there is
much reference to a Warwickshire squire who,
when the Parliamentary and Royalist armies were
forming for the battle at Edgehill, was discovered
between the hostile lines, unmovedly drawing the
covers for a fox. Now, this placid sportsman
should by rights have been slain off-hand by the
first trooper who reached him, whether Cavalier or
Roundhead. He had mistaken means for ends,
he had confounded the healthful play which should
fit a man for needful work with the work itself ; and
mistakes of this kind are sometimes criminal.
Hardy sports of the field offer the best possible
training for war; but they become contemptible
when indulged in while the nation is at death-grips
with her enemies.

It was not in Washington's strong nature to
make such an error. Nor yet, on the other hand,
was he likely to undervalue either the pleasure, or
the real worth of outdoor sports. The qualities of
heart, mind, and body, which made him delight in
the hunting-field, and which he there exercised
and developed, stood him in good stead in many a
long campaign and on many a stricken field ; they
helped to build that stern capacity for leadership

282 The Wilderness Hunter

in war which he showed ahke through the bitter
woe of the winter at Valley Forge, on the night
when he ferried his men across the half -frozen Del-
aware to the overthrow of the German mercenaries
at Trenton, and in the brilliant feat of arms where-
of the outcome was the decisive victory of York-
town.

APPENDIX

IN these volumes I have avoided repeating
what was contained in my former books, the
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. For many de-
tails of life and work in the cattle country I must
refer the reader to these two volumes ; and also for
more full accounts of the habits and methods of
hunting such game as deer and antelope. As far
as I know, the description in my Hunting Trips
of the habits and the chase of the mountain sheep
is the only moderately complete account thereof
that has ever been published.

There have been many changes, both in my old
hunting-grounds and my old hunting friends, since
I first followed the chase in the far western coun-
try. Where the buffalo and the Indian ranged,
along the Little Missouri, the branded herds of the
ranchmen now graze ; the scene of my elk-hunt at
Two-Ocean Pass is now part of the National Forest
Reserve; settlers and miners have invaded the
ground where I killed bear and moose ; and steam-
ers ply on the lonely waters of Kootenai Lake. Of
my hunting companions some are alive ; others —
among them my staunch and valued friend Will
Dow, and crabbed, surly old Hank Griffin — are

283

284 The Wilderness Hunter

dead; while yet others have drifted away, and I
know not what has become of them.

I have made no effort to indicate the best kind
of camp kit for hunting, for the excellent reason
that it depends so much upon the kind of trip
taken, and upon the circumstances of the person
taking it. The hunting trip may be made with a
pack-train, or with a wagon, or with a canoe, or on
foot; and the hunter may have half a dozen at-
tendants, or he may go absolutely alone. I have
myself made trips under all of these circumstances.
At times I have gone with two or three men, sev-
eral tents, and an elaborate apparatus for cooking,
cases of canned goods, and the like. On the other
hand, I have made trips on horseback, with noth-
ing whatsoever beyond what I had on, save my
oilskin slicker, a metal cup, and some hardtack,
tea, and salt in the saddle pockets; and I have
gone for a week or two's journey on foot, carrying
on my shoulders my blanket, a frying-pan, some
salt, a little flour, a small chunk of bacon, and a
hatchet. So it is with dress. The clothes should
be stout, of a neutral tint ; the hat should be soft,
without too large a brim; the shoes heavy, and
the soles studded with small nails, save when moc-
casins or rubber-soled shoes are worn ; but within
these limits there is room for plenty of variation.
Avoid, however, the so-called deer-stalker's cap,
which is an abomination ; its peaked brim giving

Appendix 285

no protection whatsoever to the eyes when facing
the sun quartering, a position in which many shots
must be taken. In very cold regions, fur coats,
caps, and mittens, and all-wool underclothing are
necessary. I dislike rubber boots when they can
possibly be avoided. In hunting in snow in the
winter I use the so-called German socks and felt
overshoes where possible. One winter I had an
ermine cap made. It was very good for peeping
over the snowy ridge crests when game was on the
other side ; but, except when the entire landscape
was snow-covered, it was an unmitigated nuisance.
In winter, webbed snow-shoes are used in the
thick woods, and skees in the open country.

There is an endless variety of opinion about
rifles, and all that can be said with certainty is
that any good modern rifle will do. It is the man
behind the rifle that counts, after the weapon has
reached a certain stage of perfection. One of my
friends invariably uses an old Government Spring-
field, a 45-calibre, with an ounce bullet. Another
cares for nothing but the 40-90 Sharp's, a weapon
for which I myself have much partiality. Another
uses always the old 45-calibre Sharp's, and yet an-
other the 45-calibre Remington. Two of the best
bear- and elk-hunters I know prefer the 32- and ^S-
calibre Marlin's, with long cartridges, weapons
with which I myself would not undertake to pro-
duce any good results. Yet others prefer pieces

286 The Wilderness Hunter

of very large calibre. The amount of it is that
each one of these giins possesses some excellence
which the others lack, but which is in most cases
atoned for by some corresponding defect. Sim-
plicity of mechanism is very important, but so is
rapidity of fire ; and it is hard to get both of them
developed to the highest degree in the same piece.
In the same way, flatness of trajectory, penetra-
tion, range, shock, and accuracy are all qualities
which must be attained ; but to get one in perfec-
tion usually means the sacrifice of some of the rest.
For instance, other things being equal, the smallest
calibre has the greatest penetration, but gives the
least shock; while a very flat trajectory, if ac-
quired by heavy charges of powder, means the
sacrifice of accuracy. Similarly, solid and hollow
pointed bullets have, respectively, their merits and
demerits. There is no use of dogmatizing about
weapons. Some which prove excellent for par-
ticular countries and kinds of hunting are useless
in others.

There seems to be no doubt, judging from the
testimony of sportsmen in South Africa and in
India, that very heavy calibre double-barrelled
rifles are best for use in the dense jungles and
against the thick-hided game of those regions ; but
they are of very little value with us. In 1 88 2 one of
the buffalo-hunters on the Little Missouri obtained
from some Englishman a double-barrelled ten-

Appendix 287

bore rifle of the kind used against rhinoceros, buf-
falo, and elephant in the Old World ; but it proved
very inferior to the 40- and 45 -calibre Sharp's buf-
falo guns when used under the conditions of
American buffalo-hunting, the tremendous shock
given by the bullet not compensating for the gun's
great relative deficiency in range and accuracy,
while even the penetration was inferior at ordinary
distances. It is largely also a matter of individ-
ual taste. At one time I possessed a very expen-
sive double-barrelled 500 Express, by one of the
crack English makers ; but I never liked the gun,
and could not do as well with it as with my re-
peater, which cost barely a sixth as much. So
one day I handed it to a Scotch friend, who was
manifestly ill at ease with a Winchester exactly
like my own. He took to the double-barrel as
naturally as I did to the repeater, and did excel-
lent work with it. Personally, I have always pre-
ferred the Winchester. I now use a 45-90, with
my old buffalo gim, a 40-90 Sharp's, as spare
rifie. Both, of course, have specially tested bar-
rels, and are stocked and sighted to suit myself.

INDEX

Accidents, to the ranch-
wagon, i., 54; to cowboys,
ii-, 237

Americans in the wilderness,

i-. 52

American, the, wilderness, i.,
i; hunting-books, ii., 269

Ammal,i., 155, 158, 161, 163,
164; superstition of, i., 171

Animals, legitimate killing of,
ii., 262

Antelope, i., 5, 20, 67, 73;
enemies of, i., 86; curiosity
of, i., 87 ; winter haunts of,
i., 89 ; characteristics of , i.,
112

Army, the regular, and hunt-
ing, i., 15

Bad Lands, view of the, i., ^^
Battle Ground, i., 132
Bauman's goblin story, ii.,

254

Bear, the black, i., 20;
charged by a, i. 163 ; shoot-
ing a, i., 164; where found,
ii., 31; hunted with dogs,
ii-, 32, 33} trapping, ii., 38;
food of, ii., 39; size of, ii.,
41, 43, 44; species of, ii.,
42; old hunters on, ii,, 44;
cattle-killing by, ii., 52;
prey on each other, ii., 60

Bear, the grisly, i., 21, ii., 42;
size of, ii., 47 ; habits of, ii.,
48; fond of fish, ii., 62; food
of, ii., 62; haunts of, ii.,

66; rutting season, ii., 68;
cuIds, ii., 68; hunting with
dogs, ii., 72; stalking, ii.,
77 ; hunting, ii., 80; charged
by, ii., 91 ; a dangerous an-
tagonist, ii., 93; ways of
fighting, ii., 102

Bears, modes of hunting, ii.,
69; shooting trapped, ii.,
71; attacks by, ii., 117-
122; lassoing, ii., 124

Bear- trapper, danger to, ii.,
72

Beaver Dick, i., 216

Big Hole Basin, climate of, i.,

.133

Bighorn, or mountain sheep,
i., 20, 58; tracks of the, i.,
122; of the Bad Lands, i.,
122; rutting season of, i.,
123; haunts of, i., 123; re-
quirements of a hunter of
the, i., 123; stalking, i.,
126-128; wariness of, i.,
129

Bison, tracking a band of, ii.,
25; shooting a bull, ii., 29

Boon, Daniel, i., 6, 7

Branding cattle, i., 30

Bucker, a bad, i., 49

Buffalo, the American, last
herd of, i., 13, 15, 16; vast
herds of, ii., i; slaughter
of, ii., 2; stalking, ii., 13;
stampede of, ii., 14; charge
of, ii., 17; mountain, ii., 22

Buffalo Bill's cowboys, ii.,182

289

290

Index

Buffalo hunt of Elliott Roose-
velt, ii., 3

Buffaloes, Gen. W. H.
Walker's experience with,
ii., 19

Burroughs, John, ii., 267

Bull-dog flies, i., 135

Calf- wrestlers, i., 31
California Joe, ii., 109
Camp, gossip of a, i., 69; re-
turning to, i., 178
Camping out, i., 57
Camp-kit, a good, i., 212
"Calling," hunting by, i., 258
Caribou, the woodland, i., 18;
signs of the, i., 174; tracks
of the, i., 175; shooting a,
i., 177; the author's first
hunt for, i., 180; the
habits of, i., 183; hide of,
i-. 253
Carson, Kit, i., 11
Cattle, guarding of, at night,
i., 69; branding of, i., 30;
killing by bears, ii., 51, 52;
the pursuit of wild, ii., 145
Cheyenne Indians, death of

two, ii., 252, 253
Chickaree, the, i., 204
Chipmunk, the, i., 204
"Circle riding," i., 72
Clark, George Rogers, i., 8
Clay, Col. Cecil, i., 260
Cock, the chaparral, ii., 144
Columbian, blacktail, the, i.,

63; haunts of, i., 64
Cougar, the, i., 20; difficulty
in hunting, ii. , 128; should
be hunted with dogs, ii.,
131; habits of, ii., 135,
137; haunts of, ii., 137;
seldom attacks man, ii.,
138; cases of attacks on
man, ii., 140; Trescott on,
ii., 142

Cowboys, dress of, i., 68, 69;
salutation of, i., 69; gen-
eral character of, ii., 220;
accidents to, ii., 238

Cowley, Mr., ii., 163, 164

Coyote, see Wolf

Crockett, Davy, i., 9

Crow, Clark's, i., 204; In-
dians, ii., 247, 248

"Crusting," i., 266

"Cut," the, i., 30

Deer, the whitetail, i., 19, 44,
60, 63; the blacktail, or
mule, i., 19, 34-38, 39. 41;
tracksof, i., 19; lying close

i;, 37;

European red, i., 201
Desert region, i., 2, 3
Dow, George, ii., 100
Dow, Will, i., 198
Dugout, a night at a, i., 94

Eagle, the war, i., 83-86

Edwards, Captain Frank, ii.,
247, 248

Elk, venison as a diet, i., 207;
the smell of, i., 225; stalk-
ing a bull elk, i., 226; hint
on shooting, i., 227; a
giant, i., 227

Elk-hunting the most at-
tractive of sports, i., 239

Elk- trails, peculiarity of, i.,
224

Emigrant train, an, i., 96

Famine, a meat, i., 40
Fare, the, at the ranch-house,

i., 24
Farmers, the frontier, i., 14
Ferguson, Robert Munro, i.,

40, 57, 98, 209, 228
Ferret, the plains, i., 82
Ferris, Sylvane, i., 42, 57, 58

Index

291

"Filemaker,"jump of.ii., 173
Fire, a prairie, i,, 98-104
Fire hunting, i., 45
Fisher, the, i., 204
Fool-hen, the, see Grouse,

spruce
Forest, sounds in the, i., 172
Fowl, sage-, i., 132
Fox-hunting as a